(Invited) Nanostructured Electroactive Polymers for Energy Storage and Biosensors Technologies

Nanostructured materials become critically important in a wide range of applications from renewable energy, electronics, and photonics to medical and life science, because of their unusual physical/chemical properties due to confined dimensions of such materials. This talk will present a novel class of polymeric materials we developed recently: nanostructured electroactive polymer gels that are hierarchically porous, and structurally tunable in size, shape, composition, porosity and chemical interfaces. Given advantageous features such as intrinsic 3D nanostructured conducting framework, excellent electronic conductivity and electrochemical activity to store and transport ions, they have been demonstrated useful for a number of technological applications in energy, bioelectronics, and environmental devices. Several examples on developing next-generation energy storage and ultrasensitive biosensors devices will be discussed to illustrate ‘structure-derived functions’ of this special class of materials.