Welcome to The Lin Research Group in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Iowa State University. The goal of our research is to understand the fundamentals of microscopic and nanoscopic structure formation at surfaces and interfaces, as well as in confined geometries. We intend to create these structures in a precisely controllable manner, and to exploit the structure-property relationships in the development of multifunctional materials for potential applications in optics, microelectronics, optoelectronics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. Our current research projects are:

Current research projects:

Quantum Dots Tailored with Conjugated Polymers and Their Use in Solar Cells.
Self-Assembly of All-conjugated Poly(3-Alkylthiophene) Diblock Copolymers and Their Use in Nanohybrid Solar Cells.
 Nanocrystal Sensitized TiO₂ Nanotube Solar Cells.
 Low-Cost, High-Efficiency Solar Cells Based on Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide (Cu₂ZnSnS₄) Nanocrystals.
Synthesis of Upconversion Nanocrystals and Their Use in Solar Cells.
Nanocomposites with Long-Range Hierarchical Order Based on Block Copolymers Embedded with Ferroelectric/Superparamagnetic Nanoparticles.
Synthesis and Applications of Magnetic, Ferroelectric and Multiferroic Nanocrystals.
Self-Assembly of Highly Ordered Complex Structures via Controlled Evaporation of Confined Microfluids.
Multi-Arm Star-Like Functional Block Copolymers via ATRP and RAFT.

Previous research projects:
Phase Behavior and Phase Separation Kinetics of Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystals.

ISU MSE faculty webpage: http://www.mse.iastate.edu/zqlin
The Lin research group webpage: http://zqlin.public.iastate.edu

Group News

◇ July 2011: Myunghwan’s paper, “Guided organization of λ-DNA into microring arrays from liquid capillary bridge" published in Small, 7, 1641 (2011) was featured by Materials Views on July 15.

◇ July 2011: Meidan's paper, "High efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells based on hierarchically structured nanotubes" was accepted for publication in Nano Letters.

◇ July 2011: Lei's Advanced Materials paper, "Organic − Inorganic Nanocomposites by Placing Conjugated Polymers in Intimate Contact with Quantum Rods" was featured on Frontispiece of Advanced Materials (July 5 issue).

◇ June 2011: Lei's Angewandte Chemie International Edition paper, "Semiconductor anisotropic nanocomposites via directly coupling conjugated polymers with quantum rods" was highlighted by MRS Bulletin (36, 405 (2011)).

◇ April 2011: Congratulations to Wei on his new baby girl, Mia.

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