Christopher Kemper Ober is the Francis Bard Professor of Materials Engineering at Cornell University. After several years in industry at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, Ober arrived at Cornell in 1986. His research is focused on lithography, patterning, the biology materials interface and control of surface structure in thin films. Recently he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering (2023) and the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2024). As a reflection of his contributions to lithography, Ober in 2015 was honored with the Photopolymer Science & Technology Outstanding Contribution Award. He is the 2006 winner of the American Chemical Society Award in Applied Polymer Science and received a Humboldt Research Prize in 2007. In 2009, Ober was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and was awarded the Gutenberg Research Prize by the University of Mainz. Ober served as Interim Dean of Engineering 2009 - 2010. In 2014 he was a JSPS Fellow in Japan. More recently he was elected a fellow of APS (2014) and AAAS (2015) and made a SPIE Senior Member (2018). He served six years until 2023 as the Director of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility. Presently, he is on leave at the National Science Foundation.
The ability to tailor the chemical structure of materials provides the ability to exquisitely control materials properties. Polymers, more than any other material, offer this possibility to fine-tune their thermal, optical and electrical properties through precise changes to molecular structure. Polymers are also the basis of the nanotechnology revolution, serving as photoresists used to create nanometer scale structures. Our research is therefore focused in three areas: (i) fundamental studies of self-organization in polymers, (ii) lithographic materials for microelectronics and biotechnology and (iii) new environmentally and biologically friendly materials. Each of these topics involves creative polymer synthesis using state-of-the-art facilities and methods as well as advanced characterization tools, most of which are located here at Cornell University. The research group, consisting of a mixture of graduate students and post-doctoral associates, takes part in highly collaborative research with leading groups at Cornell and around the world.
Research Projects
Michael Tsuei, Hai Tran, Sangchul Roh, Christopher K Ober, Nicolas Abbott, “Using Liquid Crystals to Probe the Organization of Helical Polypeptide Brushes Induced by Solvent Pretreatment”, Macromolecules, 2021, In Press.
Amanda Leonardi, Aria C Zhang, Nilay Düzen, Nick Aldred, John A Finlay, Jessica L Clarke, Anthony S Clare, Rachel A Segalman, Christopher K Ober, “Amphiphilic Nitroxide-Bearing Siloxane-Based Block Copolymer Coatings for Enhanced Marine Fouling Release”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2021, 13(24), 28790-28801
Yuming Huang, Hai Tran, Christopher K Ober, “High-Resolution Nanopatterning of Free-Standing, Self-Supported Helical Polypeptide Rod Brushes via Electron Beam Lithography”, ACS Macro Letters, 2021, 10(6), 755-759
Mayank Misra, Ziwei Liu, Ban Xuan Dong, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Christopher K Ober, Fernando A Escobedo, “Thermal Stability of π-Conjugated n-Ethylene-Glycol-Terminated Quaterthiophene Oligomers: A Computational and Experimental Study”, ACS Macro Letters, 2020, 9(3), 295-300
Dung‐Yi Wu, Florian Käfer, Nicholas Diaco, Christopher K Ober, “Silica‐PMMA hairy nanoparticles prepared via phase transfer‐assisted aqueous miniemulsion atom transfer radical polymerization”, 2020, 58(17), 2310-2316
Christopher K. Ober, “Materials Systems for 2-Photon Lithography”, in “Three-dimensional microfabrication using two-photon polymerization”, William Andrew Publishing, 2020, 143-174.
Hong Xu, Kazunori Sakai, Kazuki Kasahara, Vasiliki Kosma, Kou Yang, Henry C. Herbol, Jeremy Odent, Paulette Clancy, Emmanuel P. Giannelis, Christopher K. Ober, “MOF-inspired metal-containing building units for high resolution patterning”, Chem. Mater., 2018, 30 (12), 4124–4133.
Yiren Zhang, Albert Park, Alicia Cintora, Austin Moehle, Gregory D. Fuchs and Christopher K. Ober, Stephen R. McMillan, Nicholas J. Harmon, Michael E. Flatté, “Impact of the Synthesis Method on the Solid-State Charge Transport of Radical Polymers”, JMC C, 2018, 6(1), 111-118.
Wei-Liang Chen, Roselynn Cordero, Hai Tran, Christopher K. Ober, "50th Anniversary Perspective: Polymer Brushes: Novel Surfaces for Future Materials", Macromolecules, 2017, 50(11), 4089-4113.
A consortium organized by Cornell and four other New York-based leaders in semiconductor research and development has been awarded $40 million by the U.S. Department of Defense to advance... Read more about Cornell, partners to supercharge NYS microchip industry
From exploring the mechanics of early-stage bone metastasis to analyzing price formation policies in wholesale electricity markets, Cornell Engineering’s Sprout Awards are funding unique research... Read more about Sprout Awards spring collaborative engineering research
Christopher K. Ober, professor of materials science and engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions for an engineer. Read more about Ober, materials scientists elected to National Academy of Engineering
