News
Two New Articles in ACS Applied Energy Materials:
1) Nanoscale photovoltaic maps are used to elucidate performance bottlenecks in hybrid organic-inorganic nanorod solar cells (link to article).
2) Lateral charge transport pathways are shown to assist vertical charge transport in organic solar cells by enabling charge to access preferred transport channels (link to article).
Apr 2018: Jeremy Mehta received a best poster award at the New York State Section of the American Physical Society Spring Meeting and was nominated for a best poster award at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting. His poster provided insight into how charge percolates through organic photovoltaic materials. Congratulations Jeremy!
Article Featured on Back Cover of Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Solution deposition of high-performance organic semiconductor crystallites onto folded and curved surfaces creates new opportunities for low-cost integration of (opto)electronics onto large-area and three-dimensional substrates (link to article).
Jan. 2018: Prof. Mativetsky presents a plenary talk covering the latest on nanoscale electrical mapping of solar cell active layers at the International Conference on Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion and Storage Applications.
Press coverage: Times of India
Article Listed as One of the Most Cited in FlatChem
Voltage-induced reduction is a simple and green process for converting insulating graphene oxide to a conductive form. In this work, we detail the mechanisms, structure, and electrical properties associated with this approach, which is found to be competitive with more cumbersome methods (link to article, link to most cited articles list).
Mapping Structure-Function Links in Organic Semiconductors
1. A collaboration with Stephanie Lee (Stevens Institute) and Alex Briseno (UMass Amherst) shows that the orientation of organic semiconductor crystals can be manipulated through the design of molecular structure and tuning of substrate surface energy. The crystal orientation, in turn, strongly influences out-of-plane charge transport (link to article).
2. Nanoscale maps of local charge carrier mobility are generated from 5000 to 16000 current-voltage measurements, quantifying the sensitivity of mobility to local organic semiconductor crystal structure and chemical composition (link to article).
How Reliable are Raman Spectroscopy Measurements of Graphene Oxide?
Raman spectroscopy is a ubiquitous tool for investigating the structure of 2d materials. Our latest study shows that significant damage can be incurred in graphene oxide during Raman characterization; nevertheless, reliable data can be obtained if unusually low laser intensities are employed that prioritize sample integrity over measurement signal (link to article).
Binghamton Freshmen Introduced to Organic Electronics Research
April 2017: As part of Binghamton University's Research Days, Freshman Research Immersion students were invited to learn about our lab's research and equipment.
Mind the Gap
Nanowire stacking in nanowire array transistors leads to an air gap under most of the nanowires. In our latest Nanotechnology paper (link to article) we show that this air gap significantly impacts charge accumulation and current on-off ratio. These results hold implications for the fabrication and development of transistors and sensors based on all types of one-dimensional materials including organic and inorganic nanowires, and carbon nanotubes.
Mativetsky Lab at CHESS
Nov 2016: Group members run X-ray diffraction measurements at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source.
Sept. 2016: Austin Faucett successfully defended his thesis "Voltage-induced reduction of graphene oxide". He will soon begin his new job at Lam Research.
Paper on Nanoscale Patterning of Graphene Oxide Published in Carbon
The best-performing organic solar cells rely on a nanostructured active layer. This review outlines supramolecular strategies for achieving highly-stable nanostructured active layers by design (available open access 
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C-AFM Review Article Selected for J. Mater. Chem. C Emerging Investigators Issue
Conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) is unparalleled in its ability to map electrical properties with nanometer scale resolution and has played an increasing role in recent years in deciphering the nanoscale origins of device-scale organic electronic performance. This review article highlights recent insights stemming from C-AFM studies of organic electronic systems, including self-assembled monolayers, graphene, organic semiconductors, and organic photovoltaic heterojunctions (link to article).