Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Professor Robinson’s research focuses on nanostructured materials for alternative energy applications. Our goal is to utilize the advanced properties of nanomaterials to build efficient thermoelectrics and fuel cells. By altering the size, shape, and composition of our particles we are able to tune properties important to these applications such as their band gap and thermal conductivity. Additionally our conducting metal oxide nanomaterials can be used in a variety of other energy applications where charge transport is important.

Much of our synthetic work revolves around colloidal synthesis of nanoparticles, relying on solvothermal, air-free techniques. We use a variety of organometallic precursors and surfactant groups to control nanoparticle composition and growth rate, with the ultimate goal of structuring efficient materials specifically for thermoelectric and fuel cell applications. The particles are assembled into macro-sized materials through a variety of means en route to producing devices. To enhance our understanding of thermoelectrics we are studying the heat transport, carrier confinement, phonon boundary scattering, and thermoelectric properties in low-dimensional materials. We’re developing a monochromatic phonon source and a phonon spectrometer to accomplish this. Other fundamental research areas include the study of nanoparticle growth and nucleation, ion intercalation, and surface ligand chemistry.