Please contact ij255@cam.ac.uk to discuss PhD or postdoctoral research opportunities.
Biography
Ian Jacobs is a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Optoelectronics Group of the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He holds a B.E. in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Davis. His graduate research focused on the use of molecular dopants to control semiconducting polymer solubility and methods for controlling doping in organic semiconductors, with applications to nanoscale patterning. Following his PhD, he was a Royal Society Newton International Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where he helped to develop the ion-exchange doping strategy for semiconducting polymers. His current research interests concern the interplay between charge and ion transport in organic electrochemical transistors and doped films, with applications in thermoelectric and electrochromic devices.
Our group aims to develop new materials and devices for energy-efficient heating and cooling, focusing largely on solid-state devices that could be scaled to large areas and flexible form factors, and have few or no moving parts. One major focus is on thermoelectrics—solid state heat engines—built from solution-processable semiconductors such as conjugated polymers. We study the underlying physics of these materials via a range of spectroscopic, electrical, and structural characterisation techniques, with the aim of using these insights to inform new optimisation approaches. We also work on radiative cooling and heating materials, where the absorption and thermal emission bands of the material are tuned to maximize passive heating from sunlight or passive cooling from the cold of outer space. These materials could potentially provide huge reductions in energy use for building climate control, and hopefully make a real impact on our carbon footprint.
Publications
Non-equilibrium charge transport in conjugated polymers at ultra-high charge densities
Dionisius H.L. Tjhe,† Xinglong Ren,*† Ian E. Jacobs,*† Gabriele D’Avino,*† Tarig B. E. Mustafa, Thomas G. Marsh, Lu Zhang, Yao Fu, Ahmed E. Mansour, Yuxuan Huang, Wenjin Zhu, Ahmet Hamdi Unal, Vincent Lemaur, Claudio Quarti, Qiao He, Jin-Kyun Lee, Iain McCulloch, Martin Heeney, Norbert Koch, Clare P. Grey, David Beljonne, Simone Fratini, and Henning Sirringhaus*
Nature Materials 2024, 23, 1712–1719.
Enhancing thermoelectric properties of semicrystalline conjugated polymers through controlled tie chain incorporation
Wenjin Zhu, Xinkai Qiu, Joonatan Laulainen, Hio-leng Un, Xinglong Ren, Mingfei Xiao, Guillaume Freychet, Petr Vacek, Dion Tjhe, Qiao He, William Wood, Zichen Wang, Youcheng Zhang, Zhengkang Qu, Robert Cornell, Jesika Asatryan, Jaime Martin, Martin Heeney, Christopher R. McNeill, Paul Midgley, Ian E. Jacobs*, and Henning Sirringhaus*
Advanced Materials 2024, 36, 2310480.
Structural and dynamic disorder, not ionic trapping, controls charge transport in highly doped conducting polymers
Ian E. Jacobs, Gabriele D’Avino, Vincent Lemaur, Yue Lin, Yuxuan Huang, Chen Chen, Thomas Harrelson, William Wood, Leszek J. Spalek, Tarig Mustafa, Christopher A. O’Keefe, Xinglong Ren, Dimitrios Simatos, Dion Tjhe, Martin Statz, Joseph Strzalka, Jin-Kyun Lee, Iain McCulloch, Simone Fratini, David Beljonne, Henning Sirringhaus
Journal of the American Chemical Society 2022, 144, 3005–3019.
High efficiency ion exchange doping of conducting polymers
Ian E. Jacobs, Yue Lin, Yuxuan Huang, Xinglong Ren, Dimitrios Simatos, Chen Chen, Dion Tjhe, Martin Statz, Lianglun Lai, Peter A. Finn, William G. Neal, Gabriele D’Avino, Vincent Lemaur, Simone Fratini, David Beljonne, Joseph Strzalka, Christian B. Nielsen, Stephen Barlow, Seth R. Marder, Iain McCulloch, and Henning Sirringhaus
Advanced Materials 2021 2102988.
Controlling molecular doping in organic semiconductors
Ian E. Jacobs and Adam J. Moulé
Advanced Materials 2017, 29, 1703063.
Complete list at Google Scholar
