When you look at your smartphone, you see a host of vibrant colours. It most likely has not occurred to you that a considerable amount of research has gone into making that happen. Rationally designing and preparing compounds that emit a rainbow of colors for use in such electronic devices is a part of Professor William Skene’s research.
Pr. Skene’s research team also focuses on making materials that are both flexible and stretchable for use in organic electronic devices such as smartphones. The team’s research is paving the way for the next generation of plastic electronics that will be bendable, stretchable, and unbreakable. His team also works on developing environmental benign processes for device fabrication along with integrating renewable resources into devices. These approaches will reduce the waste generated during device fabrication and they will improve the lifecycle management and sustainability of electronics.
Pr. Skene values interdisciplinary collaborations because discoveries can be integrated into every step of the device fabrication chain from materials synthesis to processing and device upscaling.
Pr. Skene decided on a career in chemistry because he wanted to understand how things worked on a molecular level. The Winnipegger pursued post-doctoral studies in France at the Université de Strasbourg (formerly Université Louis Pasteur) before joining the Université de Montréal in 2003.
