01 · How we cook
We engineer active surfaces & interfaces.
Our work centers on materials systems where the active behavior lives in the defect structure, not the bulk composition. In complex oxide electrodes and electrolytes, oxygen vacancies are the working species. We apply semiconductor space-charge theory to STO/YSZ heterointerface films to predict vacancy distributions next to plasma-plume-reduced substrates, and extend the framework into compositionally graded GDC/YSZ designed to push the active vacancy population toward the electrolyte interface in solid oxide cells.
Vacancies do the same work in a different geometry in memristive systems, where we span both filamentary switching, with local vacancy accumulations bridging electrodes, and interfacial switching, with vacancy redistribution at oxide heterointerfaces gating the current. Solution-processed nanocrystal assemblies of SrTiO3, HfO2, BaZrO3, and SrZrO3 give us compositional control vacuum deposition cannot. We also build nanocomposites around naturally flexible Geobacter sulfurreducens pili as conductive protein nanowire fillers, getting conductivity at low fill fractions without the matrix stiffening that rigid CNT and metallic nanowire fillers force on soft electronics.
These methods translate into collaborative work on electroactive ceramics in solid-state ionics, memristive arrays from solution-deposited inks and blade-assisted nanostructure films, and a long-running collaboration on cold spray metal deposition at refractory interfaces.
illustrative
STO / YSZ heterointerface · HAADF
