Detail:

Abstract:
　　Our laboratory recently develops Polymer-Assisted Metal Deposition (PAMD). PAMD allows ambient fabrication of flexible, foldable, stretchable, compressible, and wearable metal (especially Cu) conductors with very high conductivity. The key innovation of PAMD is the use of a thin and functional polymeric interfacial layer that assists electroless deposition (ELD) of metal thin films and patterns (Au, Ag, Cu, and Ni) on soft substrates such as plastics, elastomers, papers, and polyurethane sponges. Such a polymer interfacial layer offers remarkable adhesion between metal and substrate, which is critical for enhancing the mechanical durability of the metal layer upon large deformation. In general, PAMD includes three steps, being (1) surface grafting of functional interfacial polymer, (2) immobilization of the catalytic moieties, (3)metal deposition by ELD. Importantly, PAMD is compatible with versatile substrates and different printing technologies at ambient conditions. This seminar will discuss the materials chemistry of PAMD and demonstrate their applications in several important soft electronic devices including circuits, solar cells, and transistors.

Biosketch：
　　Prof. Zhijan Zheng graduated from the University of Cambridge and got Ph.D. in 1987. After moving to the USA in 2008, he took a post-doctoral appointment at the Chemistry Department of Northwestern University. The year of 2009 when he started independent research career at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as an assistant Professor. He was promoted to the associate Professor in 2003. His research interest are nanopatterning, 3D nanoprinting, interfacial science, surface chemistry, polymer brushes, polymer science, self-assembly, flexible/stretchable/wearable electronics and 2D materials. Prof. Zheng published more than 60 journal papers, including 30 papers in IF≥10 journals (1 Science; 1 Nature Communications; 1 NPG Asian Materials; 8 Advanced Materials; 1 Advanced Energy Materials; 6 Advanced Functional Materials; 4 Angew Chem; 2 JACS; 3 Nano Letters; 1 PNAS; 1 ACS Nano), 17 papers in IF≥7 journals (11 Small; 1 JMCA; 3 Nanoscale; 2 ACS AMI), others in IF≥3 journals.