This Materials World Network award to Cornell University is to study the synthesis and novel deposition of organic electronic materials using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) and to evaluate these new materials and processes in optoelectronic devices such as light emitting devices, field effect transistors and photovoltaic devices. The award co-funded and managed by the Electronic Materials program in the Division of Materials Research will support the collaborative research between scientists at Cornell University and the Australian team at Melbourne. The significance of the proposed research is that if successful, the science developed would be an environmentally friendly way, organic semiconductor device properties and features that are presently inaccessible by the processing of these materials using normal organic solvents. The planned research benefits from the complementary skills of this international team in which the Melbourne group will bring to the collaboration their exceptional synthetic capabilities to provide materials suited for processing with scCO2 while those groups at Cornell will provide expertise in the evaluation of materials properties and their unique experience in the use of scCO2 to fabricate devices.
This collaborative effort combines the complementary skills of Professor Andrew Holmes at the University of Melbourne and Professors George Malliaras and Christopher Ober of Cornell University. The Holmes group has played an important role in the successful realization of organic electronics. The program envisages exchanges of the Cornell and Melbourne PIs annually and a longer exchange of co-workers. Connections between the groups will take place through exchange of personnel and regularly scheduled videoconferences. The resulting transferable skills will be shared with each institution during the exchange visits of individual co-workers. The program will provide a highly interdisciplinary education to undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students in the fields of materials chemistry, materials science and applied physics and is expected to generate strong interest from industry.
