Su Materials Lab
Materials Sciences Division | Advanced Light Source
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Welcome!
New renewable energy and water treatment technologies require functional materials with tailored properties. We study molecular-level interactions and molecular assembly in soft and hybrid materials to develop new insights into the connections between chemical structure and performance. Ultimately, this will accelerate design of new fit-for-purpose materials, for example, polymer membranes for fuel cells or water filtration devices.
Our work is interdisciplinary and highly collaborative. We leverage the unique facilities at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), including the Advanced Light Source and the Molecular Foundry, and collaborate closely with groups at LBNL, UC Berkeley, and externally that specialize in materials synthesis, theory, and transport.
Recent News
01/07/2025 - Two new publications from our collaborations are out! Check out work on understanding dopant distribution in conjugated polymers and nanocomposites.
12/09/2024 - Congrats to Kelvin, who passed his qualifying exam!
10/09/2024 - Greg receives the 2024 Director's Award for Exceptional Early Scientific Career Achievement from Berkeley Lab!
09/03/2024 - Welcome José! José joins us as a Collaborative ALS Postdoctoral Fellow. He will be working within M-WET on charged polymer membranes and is co-advised with Prof. Benny Freeman at UT Austin. José received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, working with Prof. Jovan Kamcev.
08/20/2024 - Greg gives an invited talk at the 2024 ACS Fall Meeting in Denver, CO as part of a symposium titled "Interfacial Phenomena & Dynamics in Electrochemical Systems" within the Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry.
08/13/2024 - Matt presents a poster, and Sophie, Greg, and others from the ALS organize a workshop, "Coherent X-ray Science: The New Wave" at the 2024 ALS User Meeting!
08/09/2024 - We wrapped up a great summer internship with André, Noah, and Ty! Best of luck in the upcoming semester and looking forward to future programs in the coming years!
07/21/2024 - Jonathan & Greg attend and present posters at the 2024 Polymer Physics Gordon Research Conference!
06/03/2024 - Welcome André, Noah, and Ty from Navajo Technical University! They will be spending the summer at LBNL working on characterization and simulations of 3D printed metal alloys!
04/15/2024 - Our work, Led by Jonathan and Sintu, using tender resonant x-ray scattering to reveal the mesoscale morphology in PFSA membranes is published in ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.!
04/04/2024 - Our collaboration, led by the Prendergast group, is published in PCCP! This theoretical study helps reveal why the L-edge spectra in late transition metals exhibit absorption onsets at lower energy for higher oxidation states.
12/18/2023 - Welcome Supriya! Supriya is a postdoctoral scholar who will be working on polymer nanocomposites. She did her PhD at IIT Delhi studying self-assmbly of block copolymers using mean-field calculations. Supirya did experimental work on block copolymer micelles at the University of Minnesota.
10/02/2023 - Welcome Olivia! Olivia is an ALS Doctoral Fellow and pursuing her PhD at the University of Oxford. She will be studying the microstructure of small molecule-based organic solar cells.
08/21/2023 - Welcome Mostafa and Kelvin! Mostafa is a PhD student at UT Austin and part of M-WET. He is joining our group for several months through a DOE SCGSR fellowship and will be working on in situ studies of membrane fouling. Kelvin is a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Chemistry department and will be studying ionomer membranes.
06/02/2023 - Recent work in collaboration with the Salmeron group and others shows graphene-suspension of thin films can minimize x-ray beam damage.
05/23/2023 - Check out our paper, led by Matt Landsman, on Membrane fouling mechanisms elucidated via synchrotron techniques!
02/06/2023 - Welcome to new postdoc Jonathan! Jonathan will be working on ion-conducting membranes and nanocomposites and brings in unique skills in super-resolution microscopy!
12/14/2022 - We are thrilled to be awarded a DOE BES-RENEW grant with Navajo Technical University to enable opportunities for underrepresented groups and pursue exciting work in 3D printing!
12/01/2022 - Metal-like charge transport in PEDOT(OH) films via side chain removal out now in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.! Led by our collaborators at Georgia Tech.