Research in our group focuses on materials and manufacturing techniques that allow high-performance electronic devices to be fabricated on unconventional substrates, such as flexible plastics.
One area of interest are organic transistors. For example, we develop ultra-thin, high-capacitance gate dielectrics to reduce the operating voltage of organic transistors. We study the mechanisms responsible for the undesired degradation of organic semiconductor films and develop both p-channel and n-channel organic transistors with large field-effect mobility and improved long-term stability. We investigate the use of functional molecular self-assembled monolayers to control the threshold voltage of organic transistors. We fabricate digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits based on organic transistors. We investigate a variety of concepts with the goal of improving the high-frequency performance of organic transistors. To study the behavior of organic transistors at the nano-scale we design and fabricate organic transistors with channel lengths down to 100 nm. We seek a better understanding of the ways in which the contact resistance limits the performance of organic transistors. To improve the manufacturability we explore high-resolution printing techniques, such as microcontact printing and subfemtoliter inkjet printing.		For a book review, click here.
In addition to organic transistors we are also interested in a variety of organic and hybrid nanostructures and nano-scale devices that take advantage the of unique properties of certain functional organic materials, such as molecular self-assembled monolayers. For example, we are employing thin molecular gate dielectrics to improve the performance of nano-scale electronic devices, such as field-effect transistors and integrated circuits based on semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and inorganic semiconductor nanowires. We are creating and investigating organic/inorganic radial superlattices that are obtained through a combination of inorganic molecular beam epitaxy and organic molecular self-assembly.