• Confined Deposition
    Badding Group Fall 2011

    In the garden of the new Millenium Science Building.

  • Confined Deposition
    Confined Chemical Deposition

    Templated growth of amorphous hydrogenated silicon: J.Am.Chem.Soc. v.134, p.19 (2012)

  • Confined Deposition
  • Confined Deposition
    Silane Unimolecular Rate Constant vs Pressure

    Acceleration of reaction rate allows for plasma-free, 100% efficient deposition of a-Si:H, an important solar cell material.

  • ZnSe Wire
    Atomically Smooth Zinc Selenide Wires

    Uniform crystal field environment for transition metal doping that enables light emission:Adv. Mater. v.23, p.1647 (2011)

  • Confined Deposition
    Transparent Phase of Carbon

    Low activation barrier transition between transparent phase and graphite: Phase Transitions v.80, p.1033 (2007)

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    Jet Blown Teflon Nanofibers

    Nanofibers of non melt processable PTFE for enhanced cell adhesion: Polymer v.47 p.8337 (2006)

  • Confined Deposition
    Silicon Single Crystals Grown in Extreme Aspect Ratio Pores

    Fluid Liquid Solid Growth: Advanced Materials v.20 p.1135 (2008)

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    Together with University of Southampton Collaborators

    In front of the Gateway to the Sciences

  • Confined Deposition
    Germanium Nanowire "Brush"

    Science v.311 p.1583 (2006)

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    Size Tuned Bismuth Telluride Nanoparticles

    Thermoelectric properties: Small v.5 p.933 (2009)

  • Confined Deposition
    Patterned Self-Assembled Monolayers in Silica Capillaries

    Langumuir v.24 p.3636 (2006)

  • Confined Deposition
    Raman of Molecular Monolayers in Silica Pores

    Langumuir v.27 p.630 (2011)

  • Confined Deposition
    Void-free filling of Extreme Aspect Ratio Templates

    Centimeters long silicon nanowires and nanopores: Adv. Mater. v.22, p.4605 (2010)

Research Overview

The Badding group focuses on several areas of inorganic and polymeric materials chemistry, including optoelectronic materials and metamaterials, thermoelectric materials, chemical and physical phenomena in microscale and nanoscale capillaries and orifices, biomedical materials, and polymer nanofibers. A theme running through much of our research is the exploitation of high pressures, which can allow for new phenomena and very useful capabilities not otherwise possible at ambient pressure. High pressure supercritical fluids, for example, can combine the physical transport properties of a gas with the solvating ability and density of a liquid. As a result there is increasing interest in high pressure fluids across a variety of industries and in new technological areas. Chemical and physical behavior at high pressures can be very different in part because mean free paths are up to several orders of magnitude smaller (often on the order of 1 nm or less vs 100 nm or more at lower pressures). At the micro and nano scales, the use of high pressures becomes increasingly practical because pressure is force per unit area and the forces involved become very small as the area decreases. The geometric confinement imposed by working in micro/nanoscale spaces also leads to different and in some cases very surprising and nonintuitive behavior. We strive to focus on basic problems that have the potential to have a major technological impact over time and/or open new areas of scientific research.

We thank the National Science Foundation (NSF DMR-0502906, DMR-0806860, DMR-1107894), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Carnegie Institution of Washington EFREE DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, the Air Force, the Center for Optical Technologies (COT), and the Penn State MRSEC, funded by the National Science Foundation, for support.