Slideshow

Welcome! The Mativetsky Lab aims to develop fundamental understanding of the optoelectronic properties of organic nanomaterials that will enable next-generation mechanically-flexible, light-weight, and low-cost solar cells and electronics.

News

Pravini Starts a Postdoc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Jul. 2023: After defending her PhD thesis "Probing Electrical Connectivity in Organic Photovoltaic Materials", Pravini will start a postdoc with Ying Diao at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Congratulations Pravini!

Kevin Starts his New Job at Cornell

Apr. 2023: After completing his MS degree in Physics, Kevin is moving on to work as a Research Support Specialist at the Cornell Center for Materials Research. Congratulations Kevin!

Mixed Molecular Orientations Help Charge Flow through Organic Solar Cells

Our newly published study shows that a mixture of face-on and edge-on molecular orientations can improve out-of-plane charge flow through the nanostructured donor-acceptor network in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells. This work was featured in the 2022 Chemical Communications Pioneering Investigators Issue.

Haian Lands a New Teaching Role

Summer 2021: After defending his PhD thesis "Nanoscale Electrical Characterization of Hybrid Photovoltaics with Atomic Force Microscopy", Haian Qiu will be soon be starting as a Teaching Assistant Professor at Shenzhen Polytechnic. Congratulations Haian!

Ziqi Receives an XCEED Fellowship

Mar. 2021: Ziqi was awarded an XCEED Fellowship from the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator to learn about technology prototyping and commercialization. Congratulations Ziqi!

Perovskites Feel the Strain

Localized cation motion under the combined action of light and voltage leads to lattice deformation and structural rearrangement in methylammonium lead halide perovskite films, implicating cation migration as a primary source of instability in perovskite-based optoelectronic devices (link to article).

Fighting Back Against COVID-19 

Together with Ahyeon Koh (Biomedical Engineering, Binghamton) and Zhanpeng Jin (Computer Science, U. Buffalo), work is underway to integrate respiratory health monitoring and AI pattern recognition capabilities into lightweight facemasks (news link).

Alex Defends his Thesis and Starts a New Teaching Role

Fall 2020: After defending his PhD thesis "Effects of Nanoscale Confinement on the Growth of Organic Semiconductors", Alex Haruk will be moving on to the next phase of his career as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Gulf Coast State College. Congratulations Alex!

Alumni Update

Summer 2020: Jeremy Mehta was selected to receive an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship and will soon begin work at the Department of Energy. Tong Yang has recently started working as a reliability engineer at Apple. Congratulations Jeremy and Tong!

Distinguished Thesis Award

March 2020: Jeremy Mehta received a Distinguished Dissertation Award for his PhD thesis titled "Nanoscale Charge Transport in Organic Solar Cells". Congratulations Jeremy!

Big Congratulations to Stan Whittingham!

Oct. 2019: Binghamton Materials Science and Chemistry Professor Stan Whittingham receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work on lithium-ion batteries (link to article, link to Nobel press release). 

Paper-Based Mechanical Sensing

Folding and stacking are used to enhance the mechanical sensing response of a paper composite and enable multistate switching, pressure distribution mapping, and the detection of conformation in a three-dimensional origami system (link to article). 

Next Generation Solar Cells for Next Generation Scientists

Apr. 2019: Fourth grade students from Tioga Hills Elementary School visit the lab to learn about organic solar cells.

Science as Art

Apr. 2019: This optical microscope image of organic semiconducting crystallites received the top prize for the Visualizing the Unseen category at Binghamton's annual Art of Science competition.

A Promising 2D Material for Temperature-stable Electronics and Sensors

A low-defect form of graphene oxide was chemically modified by voltage reduction to produce a highly conductive material with an electrical response that is insensitive to changes over a broad temperature range (link to article). 

Two ACS Applied Energy Materials Articles Highlight Nanoscale Electrical Mapping of Solar Cells

1) Nanoscale photovoltaic maps were used to elucidate performance bottlenecks in hybrid organic-inorganic nanorod solar cells (link to article). 

2) Lateral charge transport pathways were shown to assist vertical charge transport in organic solar cells by enabling charge to access preferred transport channels (link to article).

Poster Awards

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!

Building Towards Electronics on 3D Substrates

Solution deposition of high-performance organic semiconductor crystallites onto folded and curved surfaces creates new opportunities for low-cost integration of (opto)electronics on large-area and three-dimensional substrates (link to article).

Prof. Mativetsky Delivers Plenary Address at NECSA 2018 Conference in India

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

New Labs 

Jan. 2018: The Mativetsky Lab moves to Binghamton's new Smart Energy Building!