MSE Seminar – Prof. Prashant Sonar (6 November 2025)

Next generation active electronic materials used in devices are undergoing continual improvements to generate devices that are high performance, lighter, flexible, stretchable, and more energy efficient with lower cost. Carbon based novel solution processable π-functional conjugated materials are the focus of intense academic and industrial research for large area electronics and photonics including solar cells, transistors, displays, biomedical/chemical sensors, light detection devices and wearable printed flexible electronics. The active soft organic conjugated materials and quantum nanomaterials are emerging due to their ink forming capability, tunable optical properties, charge transport properties, relatively adequate HOMOLUMO energies, large scale ability and carbon footprint reduction capacity.
Prof. Sonar will explain the various classes of novel high performing conjugated carbon-based soft semiconducting materials either as polymers, small molecules or quantum dots synthesized using innovative ways. The design, synthesis, optoelectronic properties, and device performance of novel advanced materials for field effect/electrochemical transistors, perovskite solar cells, light emitting diodes, optical sensors and various sensing (chemical & biomedical) devices will be discussed. A series of high mobility inherently stretchable polymers based on furan/thiophene/selenophene/pyridine flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP), comprising, without, with a non-conjugated spacer in their backbone and cyano substituted thienyl-vinylene-thienyl polymers for high performance stretchable OFETs (with highest hole mobility of 1.8 cm2/Vs and electron mobility 2.0 cm2/Vs) and these devices were further demonstrated for advanced stretchable logic circuits, photodetectors & artificial neuromorphic visualizer e-Skin applications.