International Research Fellowship Program: Charge Transport Processes in Novel High Quality Organic Molecular Crystals

Hillhouse, Hugh W, Arlington VA

Investigators

Abstract

0107376 Hillhouse The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a six month postdoctoral research fellowship by Dr. Hugh W. Hillhouse to work with Dr. Teun M. Klapwijk at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. This project will study organic based materials that can be used in the development of semiconductors and superconductors. Recently there was an important breakthrough in the synthesis of organic molecular crystals. This resulted in high quality crystals that are insulating, but may be converted to a semiconductor, metallic, or superconducting state by simply turning a knob. This unique property provides experimenters with an extra degree of freedom to study the fundamental physics of the solid state. However, still little is known about the synthesis of these crystals. The objective of this project is to first study the growth of these crystals with particular emphasis on correlating structural order, defects, and purity to the measured electronic structure. The crystals will then be used as model systems to study the fundamentals of charge transport, the nature of the metal-insulator transition, and the origin of superconductivity. Dr. Klapwijk is an expert on superconductivity, nanoscopic phenomena, and charge transport in organic materials. He also has strong collaborative ties to Philips Research Laboratories where there is an active program to develop electronic devices based on organic transistors.