Search

Due to their outstanding electronic properties and high optical transparency, metal oxide thin-film transistors have significant potential in state-of-the-art flat panel display technologies. Here, high performance solution-processed metal oxide thin-film transistors were realized by fabricating heterojunctions of indium oxide (In2O3) and polyethylenimine (PEI) as the semiconducting channel layer. Due to the tunable work function of the In2O3-PEI blends, electron mobilities as high as ~10 cm2V-1s-1 were obtained.

The University of Chicago MRSEC has used super-conducting circuits and piezo-electricity to manipulate single phonons in a surface acoustic wave resonator (SAW).

At the University of Chicago MRSEC, we have shown that building blocks of the biopolymers, actin and microtubule, form lyotropic liquid crystals with controllable structure and mechanics.

Students from Girard College and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf participate in lab experiments, materials science lessons, and visits to various Penn facilities. The primary purpose of the program is to introduce URG students to STEM at an early age. 

Vesicle fusion and fission processes often occur in biological systems, usually with the aid of specialized proteins. Percec, Klein, Hammer, and Baumgart carried out comprehensive fusion/fission experiments based on three membrane ingredients: hydrogenated (RH), fluorinated (RF), and hybrid-hydrogenated/fluorinated (RHF) Janus dendrimers (Figure – Top Left).

Stable glasses produced by physical vapor deposition are important to understand. They exhibit optical birefringence, which traditionally implies that the constituent molecules are aligned.

Next-generation 'smart' nanoparticle systems should be precisely engineered in size, shape and composition to introduce multiple functionalities, unattainable from a single material. Bottom-up chemical methods are prized for the synthesis of crystalline nanoparticles, i.e., nanocrystals with size-and shape-dependent physical properties, but they are less successful in achieving multifunctionality. Top-down lithographic methods can produce multifunctional nanoparticles with precise size and shape control, yet this approach becomes increasingly difficult at sizes of order 10 nm.

Large-area growth of monolayer films of transition metal dichalcogenides is important in the rapidly advancing research field of topological materials, because scientists believe tungsten ditelluride has so-called “topological” electronic states. To this end, the Penn MRSEC SuperSeed team (Rappe, Johnson) and IRG faculty (Carpick, IRG-3; Kikkawa, IRG-4) collaborated to develop a growth process methodology for synthesis of reliable and reproducible large-area many-monolayer 1T'-WTe2 flakes.

As part of our commitment to outreach, two students working with David Chenoweth in this IRG  (Alexander Kasznal and Samuel Melton) are involved in Spark mentoring programs. Spark Students are paired with a mentor based on mutual interests. Students visit their mentor’s workplace once a week for 10-13 weeks. Students experience the value of planning, implementation and practice with the creation of a Spark Project.

The groups of Kagan, Murray, and Engheta in IRG3 teamed up to (a) synthesize gold (Au) nanorods (length of ~110 nm, diameter of ~22 nm) and direct their assembly in lithographically-defined templates to form nanorod equilateral trimers. Axial displacement of the nanorods created “right-handed” (R) and left-handed (not shown) two-dimensional chiral enantiomers.