- Materials Chemistry: Principles and Devices Driving Innovation

Catalog description

This course explores how materials underpin current and emerging technologies - from solar cells and biochemical sensors to next-generation optoelectronics. Lectures survey structural, electronic, and photonic properties and how they apply to semiconducting and photonic devices across electronics, sustainable energy, and sensing. Student-led mini-lectures on selected special topics drawn from the primary literature will deepen the class’s engagement with contemporary applications and research. The laboratory component emphasizes synthesis and characterization using Denison’s state-of-the-art instrumentation for electrical, optical, and structural measurements. In the second half of the semester, students will propose and carry out an independent research project, culminating in a final oral report. This course fulfills the Oral Communication (R) GE requirement. Three class periods and one three-hour laboratory weekly.