Dr. Bilal R. Kaafarani's Homepage
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
American University of Beirut
Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon
Email: bilal.kaafarani@aub.edu.lb
Research Interests
In our research, we work on developing novel organic materials with potential interesting optical and electronic properties.
Such materials are crucial for a wide range of organic electronic applications such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLED),
organic solar cells, and organic field-effect transistors (OFET). These materials are advantageous because of their relative
processibility (spin coating, wet-and dry-processing), synthetic tunability of band-gap, band energies, solubility, and the
availability of diverse materials. One of the approaches we use in our lab is the synthesis of discotic columnar liquid
crystals. Discotic liquid-crystalline mesophases are typically quasi-two-dimensional molecules, which are often constituted
of a rigid central aromatic core and extended flexible chains. These molecules usually pack in the form of well defined
columns forming one-dimensional paths for charge transport along the stacked conjugated cores due to good intermolecular
orbital overlap within the stacks. We are also interested in the use of intermolecular interactions to engineer the solid
state packing of molecules to generate networks. Such networks can potentially facilitate the transport of carriers and
charges along the column axis of the stacks.
2012 Organic Competition
Please email your comments to:
bilal.kaafarani@aub.edu.lb
Last updated Jan 5, 2012
© Dr. Bilal R. Kaafarani. All rights reserved.
Last updated Jan 5, 2012
© Dr. Bilal R. Kaafarani. All rights reserved.