Research

Overview

We work at the boundary between materials discovery and device engineering: designing new light-emitting materials computationally, making them in the lab, and putting them into working LEDs. Four thrusts run in parallel and feed one another.

1. Rare-earth-free and lead-free light emitters

Commercial white LEDs depend on rare-earth phosphors and, increasingly, lead-halide perovskites. We develop alternatives that are earth-abundant and non-toxic without giving up efficiency or color quality: Cu(I) halides such as Cs3Cu2X5 with near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield (Advanced Materials, 2025); Bi3+/Te4+-doped Cs2ZrCl6 with tunable dual-color emission for human-centric lighting (Advanced Optical Materials, 2026); Mn-activated phosphors; thiocyanate- and pseudohalide-modified perovskites; and chalcogenide perovskites for energy applications.

2. Data-driven materials design

We close the loop between computation and experiment. Machine-learning screening and first-principles calculations (spin-polarized meta-GGA, band unfolding) predict compositions and dopant manifolds; synthesis and spectroscopy test them; the results retrain the models. Recent examples: the impurity manifolds behind dual-color emission in Cs2ZrCl6 (Materials Today Communications, 2026) and data-driven design of pseudohalide perovskites with the Calyam group (Materials Today Communications, 2026).

3. LED integration: white LEDs, micro-LEDs, and displays

New emitters only matter once they work in a device. We fabricate color-conversion layers by 3D printing - stable lead-free perovskite layers on blue LEDs (IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2025) - and 3D-print light-extraction structures that raise LED efficiency (Optics Express, 2025). A 2026 review in Laser & Photonics Reviews maps the strategies for improving the external quantum efficiency of all-inorganic perovskite LEDs. With NSF I-Corps support (2026-27) we are assessing the commercial path for a rare-earth-free micro-LED lighting platform, and extending laser processing of perovskites toward display pixels.

4. Energy conversion and photodetection

The same materials toolbox serves energy harvesting and sensing: perovskite and indoor photovoltaics, halide double perovskites as photocatalysts for CO2 reduction, and wide-bandgap nanowire photodetectors - including a superlinear, high-temperature-stable UV photodetector built on a single SiC/amorphous-BN nanowire (Applied Physics Letters, 2026).

Funding: National Science Foundation (CAREER 1945558; I-Corps 2627441; MRI), University of Missouri Research Council, MU College of Engineering, and the MU Materials Science and Engineering Institute. See the Sponsor page for the full list.