Prof. Yajie Dong was invited to present at the 24th International Display Workshops (IDW’17) at Sendai, Japan and his presentation titled “Luminescent Perovskite-Polymer Composite Films for Display” was selected to win the IDW ’17 Best Paper Award. The IDW is known for encouraging aggressive research and development of display technologies throughout the world and especially…

NSTC students Mikhael Soliman and Abraham Vázquez-Guardado were each awarded the UCF Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship for spring 2018. The fellowship includes a stipend of $10,000, tuition coverage, and paid individual health insurance. The fellowship was awarded to 13 students university-wide. Mikhael is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Laurene Tetard’s group. He is also…

A new diagnostic test that can detect a Zika viral infection within 30 minutes could be headed to hospitals in the next year thanks to a partnership between the University of Central Florida and Orlando-based biotechnology startup Nano Discovery Inc. Qun Treen Huo, a faculty member at UCF’s Department of Chemistry and NanoScience Technology Center,…

Swadeshmukul Santra is among 45 faculty members recognized by UCF Wednesday during the university’s inaugural Luminary Award presentations for making an impact on the world. The event, themed like Oscar night, honored those who are academic leaders in their field and are making contributions to the world that are having a significant impact. Swadeshmukul Santra,…

t’s possible to produce hydrogen to power fuel cells by extracting the gas from seawater, but the electricity required to do it makes the process costly. UCF researcher Yang Yang has come up with a new hybrid nanomaterial that harnesses solar energy and uses it to generate hydrogen from seawater more cheaply and efficiently than…

Students from the Nanoscience Technology Center have won several awards at the recent NanoFlorida 2017 conference held at Florida International University, Miami, on September 23rd and 24th, 2017. Amirah Mathin won third place for her oral presentation titled “Development of anti-metastatic dihydromotuporamine derivatives which target actin filament assembly dynamics” in the Nano-Medicine for Disease category.…

An article titled “MoS2/TiO2 Heterostructures as Nonmetal Plasmonic Photocatalysts for Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution” from Dr. Yang’s research group has been published by Energy & Environmental Science. In this work, a novel MoS2@TiO2 heterostructured film with periodically patterned morphology, exhibiting an enhanced light absorption within UV-vis-NIR wavelengths, was developed. Both experimental studies and theoretical modeling…

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors with near atom thickness present an unusual combination of extremely high mechanical bendability and superior electrical/optical properties, rendering unprecedented opportunities for flexible electronics/optoelectronics. More interestingly, heterogeneously integrating one 2D semiconductor on top of the other achieving vertical stacks of 2D “hetero” structures is envisioned to project even more exciting functionalities impossible with…

In the very small world of nanoscience, Debashis Chanda, an associate professor at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center and College of Optics and Photonics, is forging huge innovations in the way we view, use and manipulate light. For instance, Chanda led the development of the world’s first full-color, flexible, skin-like display. The invention consists of plasmonic…

An article titled “Surface-Modified Porous Carbon Nitride Composites as Highly Efficient Electrocatalyst for Zn-Air Battery” from Dr. Yang’s research group has been published by Advanced Energy Materials. In this work, a scalable nanofabrication route to produce air-breathe electrode for Zn-air batteries has been developed. In such electrode, highly porous carbon nitride (C3N4) flakes were fabricated…