Kahn Lab

Research

 

Our research programs revolves around electronic, chemical, structural and electrical properties of materials relevant to thin-film electronic devices. Our research spans a range of semiconductor materials, but our current focus is on organic molecular and polymer semiconductors, and on metal halide perovskites and related materials. We study their electronic properties, their interfaces with metals, metal oxides and organic thin films, for applications in organic and thin film electronics. Our group is particularly interested in engineering materials and interfaces that improve the performance of devices, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), field effect transistors (OFETs), organic or hybrid photovoltaic cells (OPV), and other thin-film devices applicable to large-area, flexible electronics.

The large compositional space of these compounds combined with the relative ease of fabrication of organic and hybrid semiconductor films by vacuum evaporation or solution processing on a variety of substrates, give these materials key advantages over standard inorganic semiconductor materials, and open tremendous opportunities for innovation in device structures. Our research spans fundamental issues related to

  • electron-hole interaction in molecular and hybrid semiconductors
  • chemistry and electronic structure organic and hybrid heterojunctions
  • physics, implementation and impact of chemical (n- and p-) doping to control conductivity and carrier injection
  • electronic structure of surfaces and interfaces of 3D and 2D metal halide perovskites 

Our group is involved in extensive collaborations with synthetic chemists, theoreticians, and device physicists in the US, Asia, and Europe, in academia, national laboratories, and industry. Our approach involves a variety of spectroscopic techniques for electronic structures, charge carrier transport measurements, morphological and structural tools, and device fabrication.