Siddha recently completed his first semester as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University after spending the past decade at UCSB as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher. During his time as a graduate student, Siddha built an ammonothermal lab and systems for gallium nitride growth and, as a postdoc, utilized the systems he... read more »

From the article "Invention Honors" in the UCSB Current, written by Sonia Fernandez: UC Santa Barbara professors James Speck and Larry Coldren are among the newest fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).   Both professors in the UCSB College of Engineering, Speck and Coldren are recognized by NAI for their “highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or... read more »

From the article "Solar Cell Game Changer" in the UCSB Current, written by Julie Cohen: With a new technique for manufacturing single-layer organic polymer solar cells, scientists at UC Santa Barbara and three other universities might very well move organic photovoltaics into a whole new generation of wearable devices and enable small-scale distributed power generation.... read more »

From the UCSB Current article, "Atomic Imperfections":  Using cutting-edge first-principles calculations, UCSB Materials professor Chris Van de Walle and researchers in his lab have demonstrated the mechanism by which transition metal impurities — iron in particular — can act as nonradiative recombination centers in nitride semiconductors. The work highlights that such... read more »

From the UCSB Current article "Next-Generation Thermoelectrics":  Imagine charging your cellphone anywhere without having to plug in. Or barely breaking a sweat outside in the middle of summer. How about using a high-performance personal computer that cools its own components? These ideas, and many like them, may be the realities of the not-so-distant future, thanks to UC... read more »

Fromt the UCSB Current article, An Unexpected Finding:  In the pursuit of a new class of photovoltaic materials, researchers at UC Santa Barbara happened upon an entirely different discovery that addresses a centuries-old mystery of chemistry: Why does an iodine solution turn blue-black when starch is added to the mix? The exact structural-chemical mechanism that... read more »

Professor Irene J. Beyerlein joined the UCSB Materials faculty as a member of the Structural Materials research group on July 1.  Her primary appointment is in Mechanical Engineering. Prof. Beyerlein’s research focuses on the creation and design of advanced materials with unprecedented structural performance under extremes of strains, stress, and temperature.   The... read more »

From a story in The Independent written by Maddie Lee: Three Central Coast companies are the recipients of the newest series of United States Department of Energy grants awarded to small businesses. Awarded in late June at $1 million each, the grants for SixPoint Materials, Inc., MicroBio Engineering Inc., and Freedom Photonics, LLC encourage further clean energy... read more »

From the UCSB Current:  UC Santa Barbara Materials and Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Shuji Nakamura has been elected to Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s preeminent research institution. Nakamura, UCSB's sixth Nobel laureate, is among 22 new scholars and scientists elected to the prestigious academy at its biennial Convocation of Academicians earlier this... read more »

John English is an unassuming man who cultivates lifelong relationships. He pretends to be gruff, but he’s actually a pretty nice guy. And he’s always making wisecracks. John is also, of course, extensively technical – he is a co-author on 223 technical publications – and is largely credited with building the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Laboratory at UCSB. Two years ago... read more »

UCSB Materials will welcome Assistant Professor Chris Bates on July 1 to the Macromolecular and Biomolecular Materials research group.  Prof. Bates’s research sits at the intersection of chemistry, materials science, and physics, leveraging a variety of synthetic and physical experimental techniques to design, create, and probe the structure and properties of soft matter... read more »

From the UCSB Current:  Aiming to develop high-performance materials for use in extreme environments — one of her primary research interests — UC Santa Barbara materials professor Tresa Pollock and her team are collaborating with GE and others to push the effort forward. Their work, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is the subject of a new video produced... read more »