Engineering - Faculty

• Richard Douglas Robinson
• Dept: Materials Science and Engineering
• Title: Assistant Professor
• Address: 214 Bard Hall
• Phone: 607 255-7750
• email:
• return to list

Biography

Professor Robinson's research focuses on nanostructured materials for alternative energy applications. Our goal is to utilize the advanced properties of nanomaterials to build efficient thermoelectrics and fuel cells. By altering the size, shape, and composition of our particles we are able to tune properties important to these applications such as their band gap and thermal conductivity. Additionally our conducting metal oxide nanomaterials can be used in a variety of other energy applications where charge transport is important.

Research Interests

Research Projects -Colloidal synthesis of nanoparticle metal oxides -Doping of nanoparticles to control electronic and thermal properties -Synthesis of new organometallic precursors for nanoparticles -In situ studies of particle nucleation and growth -Nanofabrication of monochromatic phonon source

Much of our synthetic work revolves around colloidal synthesis of nanoparticles, relying on solvothermal, air-free techniques. We use a variety of organometallic precursors and surfactant groups to control nanoparticle composition and growth rate, with the ultimate goal of structuring efficient materials specifically for thermoelectric and fuel cell applications. The particles are assembled into macro-sized materials through a variety of means en route to producing devices. To enhance our understanding of thermoelectrics we are studying the heat transport, carrier confinement, phonon boundary scattering, and thermoelectric properties in low-dimensional materials. We're developing a monochromatic phonon source and a phonon spectrometer to accomplish this. Other fundamental research areas include the study of nanoparticle growth and nucleation, ion intercalation, and surface ligand chemistry.

Selected Publications

• Aksit, M., D. P. Toledo, Richard Douglas Robinson. 2012. "Scalable Nanomanufacturing of Millimetre-Length 2D NaxCoO2 Nanosheets." Journal of Materials Chemistry 22 (13): 5936.
• Ha, D-H, L. M. Moreau, C. R. Bealing, H. Zhang, R G. Hennig, Richard Douglas Robinson. 2011. "The structural evolution and diffusion during the chemical transformation from cobalt to cobalt phosphide nanoparticles." Journal of Materials Chemistry 21: 11498.
• Zhang, H., D-H Ha, R. Hovden, L. F. Kourkoutis, Richard Douglas Robinson. 2011. "Controlled Synthesis of Uniform Cobalt Phosphide Hyperbranched Nanocrystals Nanocrystals Using Tri-n-octylphosphine Oxide as a Phosphorus Source." Nano Letters 11: 188.
• Hertzberg, J. B., O. O. Otelaja, N. J. Yoshida, Richard Douglas Robinson. 2011. "Non-equilibrium phonon generation and detection in microstructure devices." Review of Scientific Instruments 82 (10).
• Zhang, Haitao, Bo Hu, Liangfeng Sun, Robert Hovden, Frank William Wise, David Anthony Muller, Richard Douglas Robinson. 2011. "Assembly and Attachment of Nanoparticles through Surfactant Ligand Removal, Maintaining Quantum Confinement." Nano Letters 11 (12): 5356.

Selected Awards and Honors

• Non-Tenured Faculty Award (3M) 2012
• NSF Career Award (DMR-CMP, 2012) 2012
• R&D 100 Award (Nanocrystal Solar Cells) 2009
• Lawrence Chemist Post-doctoral Fellow (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) 2004
• Pre-doctoral Fellowship (Ford Foundation) 2000

Websites

• Robinson Research Group

Education

• BS (Mechanical Engineering), Tufts University,
• MS (Mechanical Engineering), Tufts University,
• Ph D (Applied Physics), Columbia University, 2004