Manish Chhowalla

Manish Chhowalla is a Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Rutgers University. From June 2009 - July 2010, he was a Professor in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. Prior to Imperial, he was an Associate Professor and the Donald H. Jacobs Chair at Rutgers University in NJ USA. At Rutgers University he awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER Award for young scientists as well as the Sigma Xi Outstanding Young Investigator for the Mid Atlantic Region. Before Rutgers, he was a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge after completing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering there. Prior to his PhD, he worked for Multi-Arc Inc. (now Ion Bond) where he developed one of the first applications of "amorphous diamond" thin films. His technological interests are in the synthesis and characterization of novel carbon materials and their incorporation into devices for electrical, optical and mechanical applications. Fundamentally, he is interested in understanding the role of disorder in determining material properties. His research topics presently include investigation of the opto-electronic properties of graphene and carbon nanotubes, organic memory and photovoltaic devices, structural properties of boron carbide, nanostructuring in alumina/spinel nanocomposites, and deposition of carbide and nitride thin films. He has over 100 publications with nearly 5000 citations on these topics and has given > 75 invited/keynote/plenary lectures. He has served on organizing committees for numerous international conferences.

Opto-electronic properties of graphene oxide

Manish Chhowalla

In this presentation, a solution based method that allows uniform and controllable deposition of reduced graphene oxide thin films with thicknesses ranging from a single monolayer up to several layers over large areas will be described. The oxidation treatment during synthesis of GO creates sp3 C-O sites where oxygen atoms are bonded in the form of various functional groups. GO is therefore a two dimensional network of sp2 and sp3 bonded atoms, in contrast to an ideal graphene sheet which consists of 100% sp2 carbon atoms. This unique atomic and electronic structure of GO, consisting of variable sp2/sp3 fraction, opens up possibilities for new functionalities. The most notable difference between GO and mechanically exfoliated graphene is the opto-electronic properties arising from the presence of finite band gap. In particular, the photoluminescence can be tuned from blue to red to IR emission. The atomic and electronic structure along with tunable photoluminescence of graphene oxide at various degrees of reduction will be described.