Luis Jauregui
Summer 2019. After graduating from the University of Nebraska with a Master of Science in Physics in May 2019, Luis has joined the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Luis was with the group for three years studying molecular ferroelectric crystals. He made outstanding contributions to the understanding of crystal morphology and the effects of deuteration on the ferroelectric-to-paraelectric phase transition.
Andrew Fanning
Summer 2019. Andrew Fanning (2019 B.S. in Physics) graduated With Distinction from the University of Nebraska. Andy worked with the group for over three years, making outstanding contributions to the growth and characterization of molecular ferroelectric microcrystals, culminating in his 2019 Honors Thesis "Ordered Growth of Ferroelectric Diisopropylammonium-Bromide Microcrystals through Slotted-Jar Growth and Lithographically Controlled Wetting."Andy has enrolled in graduate school in Physics at Brown University as of Fall 2019.
Shashi Poddar
Spring 2019. Shashi has joined the research staff at Euclid TechLabs, LLC, a research and development company specializing in the area of conventional, dielectric and superconducting RF accelerators.
Jingfeng Song
November 2018. Dr. Jingfeng Song (Ph.D. 2016) has moved to the University of Connecticut to join the research group of Prof. Brian D. Huey, head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Shashi Poddar Returns!
September 2018. After a productive period of research with Prof. Alan Jonas in Brussels (see below), Shashi has returned to Lincoln to join Prof. Xiaoshan Xu's group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Ben Sukup Graduates!
May 2017. Ben Sukup graduates from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Science in Physics. Ben works at Kawasaki in Lincoln.
Jingfeng Song
August 2016. Dr. Jingfeng Song (Ph.D. 2016) has joined the research group of Prof. Xia Hong in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Shashi Poddar off to Belgium!
September 2016. Dr. Shashi Poddar (Ph.D. 2014) is off to the Catholic University of Louvain for a post-doctoral position with our friend and colleague Prof. Alan Jonas in the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (IMCN). So, Shashi, here are three things to remember. Do good science. Enjoy the food and drink. Learn about the people and country.
Tim Reece Promoted
August 2016. Dr. Timothy Reece (Ph.D. 2007) was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Physics and Physical Science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
Song's Paper Featured in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C
July 2016. Jingfeng Songs
latest paper will be featured on the back cover an upcoming issue of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C. This work is the capstone
of his Ph.D. Dissertation work, which was completed in May.
"Ferroelectric polymer nanopillars on flexible substrates by reverse nanoimprint lithography,” J. Mater. Chem. C. 4, 5914 (2016)
See also:
"Fabrication of ferroelectric polymer nanostructures on flexible substrates by soft-mold reverse nanoimprint lithography," Nanotechnology 27, 015302 (2016)
"Polarization imaging in ferroelectric polymer thin film capacitors by pyroelectric scanning microscopy," Appl. Physics Letters 104, 192901 (2014)
Oral History Interview with Vladimir Fridkin
December 2015. Our friend and colleague
Vladimir Fridkin was interviewed in his Moscow apartment for the Engineering and Technology History Wiki by Sydney Lang of Ben
Gurion University of the Negev. Born in Moscow in 1929, Vladimir's life and career has spanned more than eight decades from Soviet times
to modern Russia, from Moscow University to the Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography, to many visiting positions at Universities around
the world, including Nebraska. Among his scientific and technological accomplishments during his long career are the independent
invention of electrophotography (the technology behind photocopiers and laser printers), the bulk photovoltaic effect in ferroelectrics,
and two-dimensional ferroelectricity. The author of seven technical books and over
three hundred scientific papers, his literary work is perhaps more famous in Russia, where he is a well-known Pushkin Scholar and Short
Story Writer and author of ten literary books. Vladimir lives in Moscow with his wife Ira, and both continue to work and to travel the
world.
Summer Research in 2016
We
are fortunate to have many outstanding young scientists joining us this summer to work on molecular ferroelectrics research. Regular
group members Shashi Poddar, Jingfeng Song, Ross Kuchta, Ben Sukup, Andy Fanning, and Shuo Sun are joined by: Professor Tim Reece and
student Evan Folk from the University of Nebraska at Kearny; science teachers Steve Wignall form Seward High School and Melissa Terry
from Lincoln High School; Undergraduate student Cynthia Shrestha from the University of New Orleans; and student Felix Cui from Lincoln
East High School and Cole Shank from Lincoln High School.
New Group Members
Spring, 2016. Two researchers have recently joined the group. Ross Kuchta is a first-year graduate student who has joined us to work on his Ph.D. in Physics. Ross received his Bachelor of Science in nearby Southwest Minnesota State University. Dr. Shuo Sun joins us as a visiting professor to work on projects of mutual interest involving ferroelectric polymers. Sun received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Lanzhou University is and is currently an Associate Professor in the National Laboratory for Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Jingfeng Song receives a Ph.D. in Physics
May 2016. Since Jingfeng joined the group in in 2010, he has made many important contributions, many of which are reported in his Dissertation, "Nanopatterning of Ferroelectric Polymer and High Resolution Pyroelectric Scanning Microscopy," for which he was awarded a Ph.D. in Physics in May 2016. His notable contributions to science include high-resolution polarization imaging with the paper "Polarization imaging in ferroelectric polymer thin film capacitors by pyroelectric scanning microscopy" (Applied Physics Letters), and low-pressure nanoimprinting in "Fabrication of ferroelectric polymer nanostructures on flexible substrates by soft-mold reverse nanoimprint lithography" (Nanotechnology) and "Ferroelectric polymer nanopillars on flexible substrates by reverse nanoimprint lithography" (Journal of Materials Chemistry C). He also played an important role in work reported by our collaborators: with Prof. Jinsong Huang in Mechanical and Materials Engineering, "Lateral-Structure Single-Crystal Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells Via Piezoelectric Poling" (Advanced Materials); and with Prof. Yongfeng Lu in Electrical Engineering, "Multimodal Nonlinear Optical Imaging of MoS2 and MoS2-Based van der Waals Heterostructures" (ACS Nano).
Jingfeng Song makes a lot of NanoPillars
A July 2016 paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C describes Jingfeng's uses soft-mold reverse nanoimprinting lithography to
make arrays of nanopillars from ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride.
"Ferroelectric polymer nanopillars on flexible substrates by reverse nanoimprint lithography," by J. Song, H. Lu, S. Li, Li Tan, A. Gruverman, S. Ducharme, to appear in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C (2016). DOI: 10.1039/C6TC01848C
Shashi Poddar Flexes the Nanoscale
A January 2016
paper in Applied Physics Letters describes
Shashi's study of the flexoelectric effect in ultrathin polymer films. His main finding was that the flexoelectric response increases by
up to a factor of 70 as the film thickness decreases. The results suggest that this effect can be exploited in nanostructured
high-performance electromechanical devices and energy harvesters.
Jingfeng Song Improves NanoImprinting for Striped Ferroelectric Polymer
A January 2016 paper in Nanotechnology describes Jingfeng's a low-cost method of
nanoimprint lithography that uses commercial DVD-R disks as molds to print regular arrays of lines from ferroelectric polyvinylidene
fluoride. "Fabrication of ferroelectric polymer nanostructures on flexible substrates by soft-mold reverse nanoimprint lithography,"
by J. Song, H. Lu, S. Li, L. Tan, A. Gruverman and S. Ducharme, Nanotechnology 27, 015301 (2016). DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/27/1/015302
Mitchell Schmidt Graduates, heads for Medical School
Mitch graduated with a B.S. in Physics in May 2015 and will be studying medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Shashi Poddar receives a Ph.D. in Physics
Since Shashi joined the group in in 2009, he has made many important contributions, many of which are reported in his Dissertation "Study of flexoelectric effect in VDF based polymers and synthesis of novel organic ferroelectrics," for which he was awarded a Ph.D. from the Department of Physics and Astronomy in December 2014. Among Shashi's notable contributions to science are his studies of the flexoelectric effect in polymers, which were reported in Applied Physics Letters and the Journal of Applied Physics. He was also a significant contributor to the Huang Group's studies ferroelectric-enhanced polymer photovoltaics, led by Prof. Jinsong Huang in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, as reported in Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, and in Energy & Environmental Science -- to study nanoscale polarization and domain studies of ferroelectric polymers and oligomers, as reported in one, two papers in the Journal of Applied Physics, and one, two, three papers in Applied Physics Letters. He continues with our group as a post-doc working with the PSPINS MRSEC on the Molecular Ferroelectrics Thrust.
W. E. Moerner Shares the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry!
Before joining the faculty at Nebraska, Prof. Ducharme worked for two years as a
visiting scientist at IBM under the mentorship of W. E. Moerner on a
project to develop the first photorefractive polymers. Moerner, now the Harry S. Mosher Professor of Chemistry at Stanford
University, was at the same time pioneering the technique of single-molecule spectroscopy that now enables super-resolution microscopy,
so-called "Nanoscopy", which allows scientist to image molecules and biological structures with nanometer resolution using fluorescence
and fluorescent microscopy to beat the conventional optical limit imposed by diffraction. This work earned him the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with
Erik Betzig of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.
Physics graduate Arosha Goonesekera (Ph.D. 1998), worked with W. E. at Stanford as a post-doc
studying photorefractive polymers. Congratulations to W. E. and to the many students, post-docs, and associates who have worked with
him on the now burgeoning field of Nanoscopy.
Shashi Awarded CREST Fellowship!
Shashi Poddar was awarded the inaugural Teaching And Research Fellowship at the CREST Center for Advanced Functional Materials, California State University-San Bernardino. Shashi will work with CSUSB faculty to teach a course on nanoscience and conduct research on Molecular Ferroelectrics for the 2014 Fall Quarter.
REU student Jennie Pirolo from Cal State U - San Bernardino at the 2014 Nebraska Summer Research Symposium
August 6, 2014. Jennie student from Cal State University - San Bernardino, joined our group for Summer 2014 as a Research Experiences for Undergraduates research fellow.
Jingfeng's Paper Published in Applied Physics Letters
"Polarization imaging in
ferroelectric polymer thin film capacitors by pyroelectric scanning microscopy,"Jingfeng Song, Haidong Lu, Alexei Gruverman, and Stephen
Ducharme Applied Physics Letters 104 (19),
192901 (2014).
Shashi's Talk Featured
January 28, 2014
Shashi Poddar's talk entitled Designing Novel Organic Ferroelectric Crystals was featured at the Workshop on Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics and Related Materials.
Hot off the Press!
Ferroelectricity at the
Nanoscale
Vladimir Fridkin and Stephen Ducharme
© 2014, Springer
Nanoscience and Technology
Kristin earns a Ph.D. and a Faculty Position!
Fall 2013: Kristin Kraemer received a Ph.D. in Physics and started at her new job
as Assistant Professor of Physics at Kansas Wesleyan University in Lawrence, KS.