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UA gets $400,000 National Science Foundation award
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: March 10, 2014
Once known as the rubber capital of the world, Akron is now recognized for its polymer research and The University of Akron is a big part of that equation. Recently the school’s Department of Polymer Engineering got a big boost as U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown announced a $400,000 National Science Foundation award to support research in science and engineering.
“Research in science and engineering is critical to creating jobs and improving our economy,” Brown said. “The University of Akron is one of Ohio’s premier universities. This award will help it advance our knowledge of polymer science, a field in which Akron is already among the world’s best.”
The money will be used to fund the project, “CAREER: Ultrasensitive Solution-Processed Inverted Infrared Polymer Photodectors.”
“I am very happy to receive this prestigious award,” said Dr. Xiong Gong, an assistant professor in the Department of Polymer Engineering at the Polymer Engineering Academic Center College of Polymer Science and Engineering.
“Certainly, this NSF grant will support our continued investigation of the fundamental physics of low bandgap semiconducting polymers,” said Gong. “More importantly, this funding can catalyze our exploration of infrared polymer photodetectors in the fields of medical devices and the automobile industry.”
He said the department’s research seeks to support creation, fabrication and optimization of ultrasensitive solution-processed polymer photodetectors or sensors with spectral response from 350 nm to 2500 nm using novel device architecture, which is significantly different than traditional Si-based devices.
“Sensing from the ultraviolet (UV)-visible to infrared (IR) is critical to environmental monitoring and remote sensing, fiber-optic communication, day- and night-time surveillance, and emerging medical imaging modalities,” said Gong.
A “breakthrough” technology would be enabled by a new class of photodetectors or sensors that do not require cooling to obtain high detectivity, Gong said, adding he believes one of the reasons the money was awarded to the school is because “we have done certain pioneer work in the field of infrared polymer photodetectors.”
The grant money becomes available March 15 and expires in February 2019.
There are over 130 students in the department, which awards approximately 50 master’s and doctorate degrees in polymer engineering every year.
Gong started at the university in August 2010. In addition to the main project he said the department also conducts research in areas such as high-efficiency inverted polymer solar cells, organic thermoelectric devices, novel organic semiconductors and organic supercapacitors.