News
02/2023
New members join the lab
Warm welcome to Dr. Zhiyuan Huang and Zongliang Xie. Dr. Zhiyuan Huang brings her expertise in organic synthesis and MOF design and synthesis to the group as a DTRA postdoctoral scholar, working on hybrid nanomaterials for CWA mitigation. Zongliang is a visiting PhD student working on dielectric polymers and capacitors. It is a great pleasure to have both of you on board!
12/2022
Berkeley-Scripps collaboration publishes in Joule
Henry has spearheaded the effort in pushing the envelope of high temperature, high strength dielectric polymers. The Scripps-born polysulfates, known as SuFEx polymer, or the second generation click polymer, are discovered to be exceptional dielectrics for the first time, which sees great potential for power electronics and electrified transportations. So grateful to Barry's team, Peng's team, our LBL-UCB community, XJU team from Xi'an, and everyone's support. Checkout the sneak preview in Barry's Nobel lecture and press releases (LBNL, Scripps Research, Science Daily)
12/2022
One postdoctoral opening available
We have a postdoc position open. The researcher will work with a team to explore colloidal synthesis of framework materials and their conjugation with biomimetic polymers for chemical warfare agent threat mitigation.
6/2021
Horizon Prize for SuFEx Click Chemistry (see also Foundry news)
We are thrilled to be part of the team to receive the 2021 Horizon Prize in the Organic Division, Royal Society of Chemistry. It has be great fun for over a decade long collaboration and friendship, and we are ready for greater discoveries!
12/2020
Chris graduated!
Chris is now onto more fun stuff, all on his own. We are grateful to your great legacy in the group. Congratulations and best of luck. We owe you and other departed members get-together lunches, and hope we could do that when you are in town the next time!
11/2020
Yi's interview with Nature Research
In his latest interview with Nature Research Journals, Yi celebrates the 15 years of explosive research development in the area of COFs and shares his own view about the future perspectives of the field.
09/2020
PGF wins R&D100
Porous graphitic frameworks (PGFs) is one of the recipients of the 2020 R&D 100 awards. Congratulations to the team for their hard work and persistence for landing the three-year project on where it deserves!
08/2020
Xinle to Atlanta!
Xinle Li started a new faculty appointment at Clark Atlanta University after a three-year journey at the Foundry. Look forward to seeing him turning great ideas into exciting publications. Way to go, Xinle!
05/2019
Graduation season!
It is great fun to attend Matt K's hooding ceremony. At the same event Jiatao is receiving his Departmental Citation Award as the best achieving undergraduate student. Congratulations to Dr. Kolaczkowski and Mr. Liang! Both will be greatly missed.
03/2019
Nano Lett: Squeezing light to the right direction
Matt Jurow and coworkers has created thin platelets of cesium lead halide perovskites that direct emitted light outward, making them a promising material for efficient LEDs. This is an important step to enhance emitted light in the outward direction after our initial discovery of oriented emission of perovskite nanocubes. Read the FULL ARTICLE and the Foundry News.
01/2019
The Chemical Record: A personal account on BAI
Matt K's diligent writing has turned into a nice print that summarizes the past and future of bay-annulated indigo (BAI), a name that marks its collocation within the great Bay Area while the cross-bay electronic communication very much likens the pathway created by the symbolic golden gate bridge. Read more about how an ancient dye was turned into a modern one in the spirit of organic electronics.
Read the FULL ARTICLE at the Chemical Record.
09/2018
Nano Energy: 2D Materials for Better Organic Solar Cells
Yun and Teresa introduce black phosphorous (BP) into active layers of organic solar cells, showing a boost of PCE over 20%. The BP was made available from a solvothermal synthesis developed by our collaborator, Prof. Yue Tian, at a significantly reduced cost of ~ $1 per gram. Read the FULL ARTICLE at Nano Energy.
08/2018
Joule: Multiple roles of a new non-fullerene acceptor in a 12.2% ternary organic solar cell revealed
A truly collaborative effort, led by Liangang Xiao and joined by many other Foundry staff and users, has revealed the unique crystallization, energy transfer, and electron transfer characteristics of IDT-T in a ternary OPV device.
07/2018
Nat. Commun.: New Competition for MOFs: Scientists Make Stronger COFs.
Xinle and collaborators have used a chemical process discovered decades ago to make the linkages between COFs much more sturdy, and to give the COFs new characteristics that could expand their applications. Read the FULL ARTICLE at Nature Communications. News & Highlights
06/2018
Adv. Funct. Mater.: Structure-property relationships in quinoidal conjugated polymers
Azaquinodimethane (AQM) quinoidal polymers see more lights in a comprehensive study, where main chain and side chain structures are systematically varied to probe the optoelectronic and morphological features. Congratulations to Xuncheng, Bo and all the collaborators. Read the FULL ARTICLE at Advanced Functional Materials.
05/2018
Chem. Mater.: Perovskite nanocrystals go soluble cast-able with greatly enhanced stability
Aizhao, Matt and coworkers have spearheaded a general strategy for the preparation ofstable luminous nanocomposite inks using chemically addressable CsPbX3 perovskite nanocrystals. The composites exhibit high quantum yields, remarkable chemical stability toward water, and much enhanced thermal stability. The good solubility in organic solvent further enables its use as a solution-processable luminescent ink, used here for fabrication of white-light-emitting diodes with high luminous efficiency and excellent color-rendering index. Read the FULL ARTICLE at Chemistry of Materials.
04/2018
ACS Energy Lett.: Non-fullerene acceptors designed to harness large Voc and small energy loss
Thiabarbituric acid (TBA) end groups have been introduced as a weak electron withdrawing moiety into NFA IDTT-T. When paired with a benchmark low-bandgap PTB7-th polymer donor, simultaneous enhancement of both ΔEDA and absorption spectral coverage was realized. The OPV devices yield a VOC of 1.01 V, corresponding to a low energy loss of 0.57 eV in around 10% efficiency single-junction NFA OPVs. The design demonstrates a working principle to concurrently increase ΔEDA and photocurrent generation for high VOC and PCE in bulk fullerene-free heterojunction OPVs. Congratulations to Bo, Bin Yang and all the collaborators. Read the FULL ARTICLE at ACS Energy Letters.
01/2018
Solar RRL: Perovskite nanocrystals go soluble cast-able with greatly enhanced stability (Back Cover art)
Bin has demonstrated that a solid‐state photoactive molecular mediator, namely N(BAI)3, can replace the commonly used solvent additives to tune the morphology of bulk heterojunction films for improved device performance. The N(BAI)3 mediator not only resides in the active films locally to fine tune the phase morphology, but also contributes to the additional absorption of the active films, leading to ∼11% enhancement of power conversion efficiency of P3HT:PC60BM devices. These findings open up a new way to effectively tailor the phase morphology by photoactive molecular mediators in organic photovoltaics. Read the FULL ARTICLE at Solar RRL.