Organic and polymer semiconductors have emerged as the foundation for a range of new electronic and optoelectronic technologies including organic light-emitting diodes for displays and solid-state lighting, thin film transistors for printed and flexible electronics, various sensors, and low cost solar cells. Our work is focused on the molecular engineering of materials and devices, encompassing synthesis, processing, solid-state structure, properties, structure-property relationships, and device applications of bothp-type andn-type semiconducting organic and polymeric materials. In this lecture I will discuss several examples of our recent advances in these areas, including: (1) n-type small-molecule semiconductors for efficient non-fullerene polymer solar cells; (2) n-type polymer semiconductors for developing all-polymer solar cells; (3) n-type polymer semiconductors for high-mobility transistors, complementary circuits, and electronic memories; and (4) graphene nanoribbons for future carbon-based ultrafast electronics and information technologies.

Biography

Samson A. Jenekhe holds the Boeing-Martin Endowed Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. He graduated from Michigan Technological University with a BS degree in 1977. His graduate studies were at the University of Minnesota where he received the MS (Chemical Engineering, 1980), MA (Philosophy, 1981) and PhD (Chemical Engineering, 1985). Following appointments at Honeywell, Inc., Physical Sciences Center, Minneapolis, MN he started his academic career at the University of Rochester, where held the positions of Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Materials Science, and Professor of Chemistry during 1988-2000. He assumed his current positions at the University of Washington in September 2000. His broad research interests are in the chemistry, physics, and engineering applications of conjugated polymers, organic semiconductors, electronic and optoelectronic devices, materials and devices for solar energy technologies, self-assembly and soft nanotechnology, and polymer science. He has served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of many journals, includingMacromolecules,Chemistry of Materials,Chemical Engineering Journal, andMicro- and Nano-systems. He is an Editorial Board member ofMolecular Systems Design and Engineering, a journal from the Royal Society of Chemistry andInstitution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE).

His research accomplishments are summarized in over 300 journal articles, which have received over 33,900 citations with h-index of 103, according to Google Scholar. He has also edited three books and was awarded over 30 US patents. Thomson Reuters (Science Watch, March 2011) named him among the top 40 on their worldwide list of “Top 100 Materials Scientists of the Past Decade, 2000-2010.” Thomson Reuters, and subsequently, Clarivate Analytics have also named Jenekhe a Highly Cited Researcher in materials science.

He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2003), the American Physical Society (2003) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (2015). He was elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2013. He is the recipient of the 2014 Charles M. A. Stine Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).