An assistant professor at Texas A&M University has been selected to receive a 2017 National Science Foundation award.
Lei Fang, assistant professor of chemistry, is set to receive the Faculty Early Career Development Award for his research on polymer properties and dynamic bond-promoted coplanarity.
Fang’s work of chemical synthesis, process engineering and materials characterization has been funded through the Division of Materials Research. The projected total amount of $559,818 will start June 2017 and extend through May 2022.
Fang said “his project aims to investigate the fundamental correlation between the geometry of electrically semiconducting polymer molecules and their corresponding materials properties”.
Per the assistant professor, the precision control of the molecular shapes of semiconducting polymers is critical. Fang will attempt to tackle this issue through his career project of “synthesizing molecules with reversible and controllable interactions between different segments along the polymer chain”.
Fang said that structural control may not only enable the access of the improved functional performance, but will also allow for easier processing of polymer materials into application-relevant forms.
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