Briseno Research Group
Current Research
Current Research: Our polymer research group focuses on balancing interests not only in technological applications, but also into answering fundamental questions that hone in on specific disciplines. The goal is to nucleate new and exciting research in the areas small organic semiconductor molecules, polymer semiconductors, organic nanocrystals, polymer-related sensors, and biomolecules, for their use in optoelectronic devices, sensors, organic field-effect transistors, and bioelectronic devices. Our group focuses on several disciplines related to the following Areas:
- Polymer Semiconductor Devices (e.g., Transistors, Sensors, Lasers, Photovoltaics, etc.)
- Structure-Property Relationships, Fundamental Knowledge in Polymer Semiconductors
- Synthesis of Novel Organic / Polymer Semiconductors (i.e. Organic/Inorganic Hybrids)
- Polymer/Biomedical Sensors, Microfluidics
- Multi-Dimensional (2-D, 1-D, 0-D) Organic and Polymer Single-Crystals
We are interested in single-crystals because they are free of grain boundaries and this enables efficient charge transport through the active material. There is little work on polymer semiconductor single crystals and our group is committed in employing them for mainstream applications such as in consumer electronic devices.
If one slices different sections from a bulk single crystal, it is possible to extract three different dimensionalities. Two-dimensional crystals have been heavily exploited and recently, one-dimensional organic crystals have debuted in many applications especially in organic field-effect transistors (Materials Today, 2008, 11, 38-47). Zero-dimensional organic nanocrystals, however, have not been fully investigated. Our group is actively pursuing the synthesis, self-assembly, charge-transport phenomena, and device applications of 0-D single crystals.
