August 20: Optoelectronic Conjugated Macromolecules and Aligned Carbon Nanotubes: From Materials Syntheses to Device Applications
Speaker: Liming Dai, Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
Date: August 18th, 2010, 3:00p.m.
Place: ElectroScience Laboratory Classroom, 1320 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212ElectroScience Laboratory
Abstract:
With processing advantages of plastics and the optoelectronic properties of inorganic semiconductors, conjugated macromolecules have been synthesized for flexible optoelectronic device applications, including organic light-emitting diodes and photovoltaic cells. Having conjugated all-carbon structures, carbon nanotubes also possess certain similar physicochemical characteristics as conjugated macromolecules, apart from their superior thermal and mechanical properties. While there is currently a large effort worldwide in developing nanocomposites from nonaligned carbon nanotubes and polymers, the combination of the unique physicochemical properties of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes with comparable optoelectronic properties of appropriate conjugated macromolecules has yielded some interesting synergetic effects. In this talk, I will present some of our work in these exciting areas, along with various rational concepts for the design and development of multifunctional materials based on appropriate conjugated macromolecules and aligned carbon nanotubes for certain device applications.
Bio:
Liming Dai joined Case Western Reserve University in fall 2009 as the Kent Hale Smith Professor in the Case School of Engineering. Dr. Dai received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Zhejiang University in 1983 and a doctorate in chemistry from the Australian National University in 1991. He accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and two years later became a visiting follow in the department of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dai spent 10 years with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia, where he built a world-renowned research team in nanomaterials. Before joining the Case Western Reserve University, he was an associate professor of polymer engineering at the University of Akron (March, 2002 – August, 2004) and the Wright Brothers Institute Endowed Chair Professor of Nanomaterials at the University of Dayton (August, 2004 - 2009).
Dr. Dai’s expertise lies across the synthesis, chemical modification and device fabrication of conjugated polymers and carbon nanomaterials. He has published more than 250 scientific papers, a research monograph on intelligent macromolecules, an edited book on carbon nanotechnology, and held about 20 issued/applied patents. Dr. Dai is on the editorial board of several international journals and has received many awards including the recent George Noland Research Award from Sigma Xi, and the Outstanding Engineers and Scientists Award from the Affiliate Societies, Council of Dayton in 2006.
