Specialization:
Synthesis and characterizations of conductive conjugated materials for organic solar cells and thermoelectrics
Education:
B.S. in Chemistry, 2007, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)
Ph.D. in Chemistry, 2011, University of Colorado at Boulder
Bio:
Cheng-Kang was born and raised in Leizhou Peninsula, the southernmost point of the China mainland. He graduated from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2007. As an undergraduate, he worked with Prof. Guan-Wu Wang investigating the functionalization of fullerene C60 via organic synthesis. Then he went to University of Colorado at Boulder working on total synthesis of natural products under the supervision of Prof. Tarek Sammakia, and he accomplished a formal total synthesis of diazonamide A. He wished to broaden his knowledge and experience and applied his synthetic expertise on organic materials. After successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis in Dec, 2011, he joined the Bazan group focusing on design and synthesis of organic thermoelectric materials.
Research:
My research focuses on rational design and synthesis of organic small molecules and polymers for organic solar cells and thermoelectrics. Understanding the structure-property relationship is important for the future material design. I not only synthesis and characterize organic materials, but also fabricate and test organic thermoelectric devices. I collaborate with several research groups to study my conductive conjugated materials for a variety of applications.