Mur Mitoyen
Polytechnique Montréal - Pavillon Lassonde
Benoît H. Lessard, Ph.D. PEng.
Assistant Professor
University of Ottawa
The Lessard Research group focuses on the development of novel functional carbon based materials and polymers as well as their use in next generation organic electronics. The group has projects that span the development of inexpensive flexible solar cells to polymer based CO2 sensors and even highly selective DNA sensors. We strive to develop orthogonal processing techniques which are overcoming many of the challenges associated to making multi-thin films devices. From synthesis to device fabrication and prototype evaluation, our group can study the subtle yet crucial cross disciplinary aspects which are often overlooked by researchers that focus on only the chemistry or the physics. This seminar will touch on structure property relationships between device performance and solid state engineering through organic chemistry and thin film processing. We will present our recent studies on novel silicon phthalocyanines and other emerging organic semiconductors. Secondly, we will elaborate on our synthesis of well-defined functional polymers synthesized by nitroxide mediated polymerization (NMP). This type of controlled radical polymerization facilitates the synthesis of polymers with narrow molecular weight distributions and the incorporation of functional groups without the need of metal catalysts and thiol groups which can be problematic for sensitive biological and electronic applications. We will present our work on NMP grafted-to and grafted-from insoluble hole transport layers for next generation solution processable multi-layer electronics.
Prof. Benoit H. Lessard was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at University of Ottawa, (Ontario, Canada) in May 2015. Since then he has been awarded the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Advanced Polymer Materials and Organic Electronics and the 2015 Charles Polanyi Prize in Chemistry. Prof. Lessard was also awarded one of the 2017 Emerging Leaders of Chemical Engineering Plenary Presentation at Canadian Chemical Engineering Society, 67th Annual Conference (Edmonton, AB). Prior to joining uOttawa, Prof. Lessard completed an NSERC Banting Fellowship at the University of Toronto studying crystal engineering and OPV/OLED fabrication. Prior to that he completed his PhD in polymer chemistry and reaction engineering at McGill University, where he was awarded the NSERC Alexander gram bell CGS as well as the MSED-LANXESS PhD thesis award in polymer science. Since 2008, Prof. Lessard has published 51 peer review journal articles, 6 patent applications, 1 book chapter and presented his work at over 54 international and national conferences.
