(6dx) Fabrication of Conducting Polymers and Superconductors Using Chemical Vapor Deposition Methods for Energy and Electronic Application Devices

Device Fabrication based on oxidative Chemical Vapor Deposition (oCVD) synthesize of Conducting Polymers (CPs) combines biocompatibility, electronic conductivity, optical transparency, and mechanical flexibility compatible with lightweight substrates. Due to these features oCVD CPs exhibit promising performance for next-generation devices in a wide range of applications including but not limited to electronic, optoelectronic, electrochemical, optochemical, drug release, tissue engineering, medical devices, sensors, soft robotics, corrosion protection layers, economical and distributed devices for the Internet of Things (IoT), thermoelectric devices, and energy storage and harvesting devices.^{[1, 2]}

Nowadays, there is a significant implication of highly versatile electronic materials in energy harvesting and storage devices. Electronic materials are a vital building block for the advanced technologies as faster computing, and smaller device size is demanded to make our daily life more comfortable and productive. My research during Ph.D. and Postdoctoral span Superconductors, Semiconductors, and Conducting Polymers, which are the three main electronic materials, in both fabrication (using highly versatile roll-to-roll Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), and oCVD techniques), and energy/electronic device applications in macro and nanometer scales. Such an enriching experience provides me with a strong background to put my research direction in the field of electronic device fabrications.

During my postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), under the supervision of Prof. Karen Gleason, I am currently working on device fabrication based on the oCVD synthesis of conjugated conducting polymers (CPs). We developed a method to use volatile liquid oxidant such as vanadium oxytrichloride (VOCl₃) instead of common solid oxidants such as iron chloride (FeCl₃). VOCl₃ is a volatile liquid at room temperature, and its flow rate to the oCVD reactor is more controllable than its solid oxidants counterparts, which resulted in better control of the VOCl₃ surface concentration. In addition, the main advantage of using volatile liquid oxidant is that the final CPs thin films exploit directly in device fabrication without the need for any post-deposition rinsing step to remove unreacted oxidants and oxidation by-products. The resulting oCVD CPs properties such as conductivity can be tuned by controlling the VOCl₃ and monomer flow rates as well as the substrate temperature and other processing parameters. The outstanding results relates to exploiting CPs in perovskite solar cell device and flow battery were obtained and published in Science Advanced,^[1] and submitted to Advanced Materials, respectively.

My Ph.D. research, focused on fabrication of Second-Generation High Temperature Superconductors (2G-HTS) by roll-to-roll MOCVD method. The 2G-HTS have a wide range of applications in power electronic devices. At the same time, I worked on developing the structure and texture analyses methods for 2G-HTS with outstanding current carrying capacity and mechanical strength on Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD)/MgO template (Figure 2).^[3] As the outcome of my doctoral research, we obtained the world-record of the high critical current density value of 20 MA/cm² at 30 K, 3 T (B||c), and high pinning force value of 1000 GN/m³ at 20 K in the REBCO coated conductors at the operating condition of wind turbines. This world-record of the high critical current density and high pinning force already mentioned and acknowledged in numerous publications by other researchers in the superconductivity community.

Electronic materials have provided motivation and inspiration for many innovations in modern technologies and energy harvesting and storage devices. There is a wide room for future modern device applications using Conducting Polymers (CPs) as biocompatible electronic components grown by highly versatile deposition technique like CVD and its derivative techniques such oCVD. As global energy demand continues growing, there is an urgent need for the development of clean, and renewable energy devices, which can reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. My research interests lie in electronic materials fabrication using novel vapor phase techniques (e.g., oCVD, MOCVD) for large-scale production of organic and inorganic nanostructures and implementation of these electronic materials into devices based on industrial demands and energy applications. Therefore, I plan to investigate several key points which are listed as three projects by focusing on the large-scale production by a versatile roll-to-roll CVD process and will be discussed at the meeting.

• Energy harvesting and storage devices (by focus on photovoltaic and electrochemical energy storage devices)
• Thermoelectric devices
• Integrating superconductors and conducting polymers in a flagship biocompatible electronic device

Teaching Interests:

I have had several enriching teaching and mentoring experiences during my graduate studies, and I view teaching as an essential and enjoyable part of being a faculty member. Like my research, my teaching experience includes both theoretical and practical courses, enabling me to comfortably step into teaching roles for theoretical as well as practical undergraduate and graduate courses. I served as a mentor of few undergrad and M.S students, during my Ph.D. and Postdoctoral studies and was serving as a teaching assistants of several courses.

During my Postdoctoral studies at MIT, I earned the Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program (KTCP) certificate as the evidence of a strong commitment to the teaching enterprise. During KTCP workshop sessions at MIT, I became completely familiar and got useful experience and knowledge relates to designing a course and constructing a syllabus, planning and facilitating a class session, interactive teaching and active learning, constructing effective problem sets and exam questions, and diversity.

(1) M. Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, M. M. Tavakoli, E. F. Gleason, M. T. Robinson, J. Kong, K. K. Gleason, Tuning, Optimization, and Perovskite Solar Cell Device Integration of Ultrathin Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) Films via a Single-Step All-Dry Process. Science Advances. In Press. (2019).

(2) M. Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, K. K. Gleason, Device Fabrication Based on Oxidative Chemical Vapor Deposition (oCVD) Synthesis of Conducting Polymers and Related Conjugated Organic Materials. Advanced Materials Interfaces. 6, 1801564 (2019).

(3) M. Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, G. Majkic, E. Galstyan, A. Xu, M. Kochat, X-F. Li, V. Selvamanickam, Superconducting characteristics of REBCO coated conductors with different Zr content, IEEE Transaction on Applied Superconductivity. 29 (5), 6601105 (2019).