Prof. Elsa Reichmanis

Title: From Semiconducting to Mixed-Conduction Polymers: opportunities in flexible electronics and energy storage

Polymer-based semiconductors have received significant attention in recent years because they offer opportunities for low-cost device fabrication for applications ranging from energy to health care and security. Underlying the successful design, development and implementation of emerging polymer chemistries is identification of a set of ‘design rules’ derived from fundamental structure-property relationships, coupled with the development of process-structure-property relationships that govern molecular organization; whereby device performance depends critically on surfaces, interfaces and active material assembly/alignment at many length scales. This presentation will explore the relationships between molecular structure and solution processing protocols that provide for the development of key process-structure-property relationships for conjugated polymers that ultimately support electronic and/or electronic/ionic conduction. Included will be a discussion of the role of surface chemistry considerations, coupled with interfacial physicochemical interactions, that will enable the realization of robust and reproducible semiconducting solutions for new, advanced polymer materials technologies for applications ranging from devices to energy storage.

Elsa Reichmanis is Professor and Carl Robert Anderson Chair in Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University. Prior to joining Lehigh, she was Pete Silas Chair in Chemical Engineering at Georgia Tech. After receiving her PhD and BS degrees in chemistry from Syracuse University, she started her independent career at Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, where she was named Bell Labs Fellow and rose to be Director of the Materials Research Department. Her research interests include the chemistry, properties and application of materials technologies for photonic and electronic applications. She has had impact in the design of new imaging chemistries for advanced lithographic applications, and designed one of the first, readily accessible and manufacturable polymers for advanced silicon device manufacturing using 193 nm lithography. The Reichmanis Research Group is currently exploring polymeric and hybrid organic/inorganic materials chemistries for a range of (opto)electronic device and sustainable energy applications. Her research, at the interface of chemical engineering, chemistry, and materials science, spans from fundamental concept to technology development and implementation, with particular focus on polymeric and nanostructured materials for advanced technologies.