Highlights

Outcome: In collaboration with experimental studies at Princeton University we have carried out ab initio calculations to examine the effect of pressure on the topological phase diagram of Pb1-xSnxTe. The calculations reveal that the ferroelectric polarization, which breaks crystal inversi

Intellectual Merit: Carbon-based materials have attracted scientific interest due to their promise to revolutionize the electronics industry. Carbon Spheres (CS) were produced via hydrothermal carbonization of sucrose. A Schottky diode was fabricated using a composite of the highly conduct

Our research supported by the NSF PREM project studied the synthesis, fabrication, and characterization of advanced materials for sensing, energy harvesting, and storage. Our integrated 3D printing with in-situ functionalization of piezoelectric nanocomposite enabled us design nanocomposit

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs), have shown a remarkable increase in photoconversion efficiency (PCE), from 3.8%  in 2009, to 22.1% in 2016. The good electron transporting and solution processable properties of most fullerene derivatives make them the most popular electron transporting mater

How? Synthesizing and isolation of ultra-small gold nanoparticles with a specific shape or structure. We have developed a facile approach for shape-controlled synthesis of gold nanoparticles using KBr and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) as the reducing agent. 

How? We use optical microscopy to determine the dynamics of photo-generated charges in individual semiconductor nanowire hetero-structures.

Transparent conducting oxide play a key role in photovoltaic (PV) devices. There has been much recent interest in finding alternative indium (In) free TCOs and even better performing alternative candidates to substitute for standard ITO.  The driving factors are: scarcity, unintended inter

We have separated Sc3N@D5h-C80 from Sc3N@C68 based on their chemical reactivity differences using the p-toluenesulfonyl tosyl hydrazone of phenyl butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). We also performed for the first time the synthesis and characterization of five PCBM methano

In March-April 2015, approximately 50 PREM students, faculty and other volunteers visited six rural schools in the towns of Yabucoa and San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. The activities included short talks and hands-on demonstrations from the Nanodays (NISENet) kits and others developed by our pro

The aim of this project if to detect and characterize nucleation sites when a local cavity starts to form, in particular to detect cavitation sites in molecular dynamics simulations of liquid chloroform with and without carbon nanotubes.