Welcome



Research theme: Materials and devices. 


Strategy:

  • “Artificial atom” or “building-block” approach
  • experimentally simple yet powerful.
  • wide range of choices for building-blocks:
    •   a huge range of materials / devices and
    •   bottom-up control. 

Goals:

  • Advance both fundamental science and applications.
    • Science: particularly interested in generating and studying exotic quantum effects. 
    • Applications:
      • advanced sensors/detectors,
      • analytical instruments,
      • improved catalysts, and
      • inexpensive, clean hydrogen.  

Specific projects:

Materials:

  • Tunable light absorbers and Next generation catalysts: Link
    • Thick, thermally deposited metal films tend to make good mirrors i.e. poor light absorbers. 
    • nano-metal films grown layer-by-layer (LbL)
      • absorbance increases with thickness and can be controlled.
    • E.g. we have developed broadband superabsorbers
    • E.g. application: new catalysts for direct solar-to-hydrogen conversion.

  • 2D cross-linked nanosheets (XNS): Link
    • New 2D material developed by our group.
    • It is highly ordered, 1 nanoparticle thick and macroscopic in 2D.
    • E.g. Remarkable behaviours…
      • Building block light absorption becomes 10x enhanced.
        • Macroscopic film conductance manifests quantum, particle-in-a-box energy levels of building blocks.

  • Quantum nanoengineered materials (qNEMS):
    • hybridized localized-delocalized electronic states → landmark quantum effects
    • q-NEMs affords bottom-up control
    • New benchmarks: Link
      • Kondo effect at 10x localized dopant concentration than previously reported
      • “proximity Kondo effect”
      • method to raise TK by 10x to >220K.

Devices:

  • Charge exchange transistor (CET) – an extension of electrochemistry: Link
    • we recently developed CET
    • modifies a material’s resistance by charge exchange e.g. via redox or chemical bonding.
    • E.g. Applications: catalyst development and sensing.

  • Sensors/detectors:
    • chemicals that are harmful and
    • light at wavelengths that are challenging to detect using other approaches

What students do after graduating:

  • Postdoc
    • e.g. U. of T., Stanford, U. of Montreal, Columbia, Berkeley, Postech – Korea, National Research Council
  • R&D e.g. Battery recycling startup, Biotech startup, Abbott sensor, Samsung, nanomaterials
  • Consulting in the green sector
  • Data analysis – investment banking
  • Hospital lab manager