Expertise

An oversight of research activities, facilities, and expertise in individual research groups. No particular order but moving from left to right follows a trend of going from device engineering, to materials, to characterization and fundamental studies.

Sushil Kumar

  • Semiconductor lasers: distributed-feedback lasers, surface-emitting lasers
  • Intersubband phenomena in semiconductor superlattices
  • Terahertz photonics: terahertz quantum-cascade lasers, terahertz detectors
  • Terahertz sensing and spectroscopy
  • Fabrication of semiconductor lasers
  • Terahertz and Mid-infrared plasmonics

Ning Li

  • Emerging memory devices and logic devices for computing
  • High-power high-frequency electronic and optoelectronics devices
  • Optical interconnects and other digital and analog optical links
  • Light-emitting-diodes and photodetectors using inorganic and organic materials

Siddha Pimputkar

  • Single crystal growth in bulk and thin film formats of nitrides using supercritical ammonia or metal fluxes
  • High pressure autoclaves (< 2500 atm, 600 C or < 100 atm, 1000 C) suitable for annealing of small samples in nitrogen-active environments
  • Thin film deposition tool development (in particular high pressure MOCVD tool)
  • Characterization of single crystal materials
  • Thin film growth, processing, and characterization
  • Synchrotron xray scattering and absorption on thin films
  • Atomic layer deposition, molecular layer deposition, and growth of metal oxides and nitrides
  • Electrical device fabrication and measurements (MOS capacitors, Schottky diodes)
  • Thin film deposition tool development
  • Collaborations with semiconductor and chemical industries

Jim Gilchrist

  • Roll-to-roll enabled Janus particle fabrication using oxide or polymer particle cores half coated with various metals
  • Field or capillary-driven particle self-assembly to 3D structured coatings ( colloidal crystals for optical coatings and templated materials)
  • Variable emissivity fluids
  • High speed 3D confocal microscopy for characterizing structure during colloidal assembly
  • Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP)

Yevgeny Berdichevsky

  • Brain-on-chip
  • Living neural network computation
  • Microtechnology for models of neurological disorders

Himanshu Jain

  • Fabrication of oxide and chalcogenide glass bulk and thin films 
  • Engineering of glass structure, single crystal architecture and its properties by light and electrons 
  • Photoinduced phenomena in glass
  • Physical and chemical properties of glasses 
  • Structure of glass bulk and surfaces
  • Organic and hybrid optoelectronic materials and processing
  • Conjugated polymer design, synthesis and processing
  • Solution processing of organic/hybrid materials for large area device fabrication
  • Materials and processes for organic field effect transistors and organic electrochemical transistors
  • Composite materials and processes for high capacity storage materials /battery electrodes
  • fundamental studies of wettability and interfacial motion
  • formation, interfacial properties, and decomposition of unstable oxides
  • layer-by-layer assembly of nanoscale precursors for higher order materials. 
  • unusual kinetics in chemical and physical systems
  • Microfluidics employing physical fields and/or affinity chemistry for biological sample processing
  • Optical and electrical sensors for the detection and monitoring of biological particulates
  • Flow responsive polymers and drug delivery carriers
  • microfluidics and soft lithography
  • confocal and fluorescence microscopy
  • neutron reflectivity
  • lipid membrane physical chemistry and biochemistry
  • Noise and fluctuations in systems far from equilibrium 
  • Interficial phenomena at the interface of living and nonliving materials 
  • Electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis and photophoresis
  • Optical imaging of the stress-strain field in drying coatings
  • Electronic structure of molecules and materials systems for mechanistic understanding photoexcitation, charge transfer, and catalysis.
  • Computational models of experimental materials, including defects, surfaces, and disorder.
  • Structure-property relationships of complex systems.
  • Combine molecular and material descriptions.
  • Electrochemical intercalation of organic molecules in 2D materials 
  • Self-assembled 2D van der Waals materials
  • Intrinsic defects in 2D-based transition metal chalcogens
  • Chemical tuning of 2D van der Waals materials with isovalent elements
  • DNA sequencing in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides 
  • Defects and dopants in insulating and semiconducting materials. Mainly: nitrides, oxides, and chalcogenides
  • Spectroscopical characterization of the material systems above both high-resolution cw- and time-resolved.
  • Application space: ferroelectrics, nonlinear optics, LEDs, lasers. 
  • Laser processing of materials used for instance for crystallization of glass. 
  • Exciton dynamics and transport in organic semiconductors
  • Organic molecular materials for all-optical switching and electro-optic modulation in integrated photonics
  • Four-wave mixing 
  • Pump&probe transient gratings for sensitive detection of transport and excited state dynamics
  • Fluorescence spectroscopy and dynamics
  • Study and development of 2nd and 3d order optical susceptibilities and effects in molecules and materials
  • Photochemistry for renewable energy applications. 
  • Transient absorption spectroscopy on molecules and materials systems for mechanistic understanding of energy flow and charge transfer.
  • Emissions spectroscopy (time resolved and steady state). 
  • Electrochemical analysis.
  • Synthesis of photoactive inorganic and organic molecules.
  • Nanoscale measurement of chemical heterogeneity of sample surface with atomic force microscopy and infrared laser in the air and liquid phase 
  • Nanoscale measurement of the surface potential of samples with pulse force kelvin probe force microscopy 
  • Measurement of polaritons through atomic force microscopy-based optical techniques
  • Infrared Spectroscopy
  • Defects and impurities in semiconductors and transparent conducting oxides