The MPS Distinguished International Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (MPS-DRF) enables U.S. scientists to conduct research abroad. The fellowship allows awardees to establish long-term international collaborations that will benefit them and the U.S. scientific community by developing international connections and perspectives in future science leaders.
This award will support a 24-month research fellowship for Dr. Matthew T Stone to work with Professor Harry L. Anderson and his group at the University of Oxford, UK. The proposed work will develop a new generation of semi-conducting polymers for applications such as field-effect transistors, photovoltaic diodes and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The lower fabrication costs of these novel materials will lead to the development of commercial products such as polymer LED displays. This work will be accomplished through a systematic approach to establish a synthesis of relatively soluble and stable linear polyacenes by molecularly insulating them with cyclodextrins.
Professor Anderson is a leader in this area of research and has an international reputation in the sub-field of conducting polymers. Pro. Anderson's Oxford labs are ideally set up for the proposed research project, and have additional collaborations locally (e.g., University College London) to aid in the performance characterization of the proposed materials. This broadening experience will provide Dr. Stone with a strong foundation to return to the U.S. to pursue his plans for an academic career in a research area of growing importance.
