Research into the chemistry and physics of supple electronic materials and devices constitutes a major interdisciplinary theme within the department. Organic, inorganic, physical and theoretical groups within the department, as well as other groups from engineering and physics, are working together to fabricate a broad class of novel electronic devices. These include: self-assembled networks of molecular switches and resonant tunneling diodes integrated with quantum wires; organic-derived photonic devices such as photovoltaics and light-emitting diodes; and acoustically modulated optical switching crossbars built from quantum dot superstructures. Other related areas of research include photonic band gap materials, switches based on magnetoresistive elements and single electron charging devices.

A Langmuir monolayer of silver quantum dots that is undergoing
an  acoustically generated, reversible metal/insulator transition.
This technology, which is being developed in the Heath
and Levine laboratories, may be used to fabricate vastly
improved optical switching networks.
(C.P. Collier, S. Henrichs and J. Heath;
image by the UCLA Visualization Lab.)

Extremely short (100 femtosecond) infrared laser pulses are frequecy doubled in a nonlinear optical crystal in the Schwartz
laboratory to produce visible pulses for use in experiments exploring the photophysics of semiconducting polymers.