Oh my goodness! This is for the other readers of this website whos tastes do not run with men but rather with women and boy do I have a surprise for you.
Dr. Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo is an absolutely gorgeous chemical engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin. I've read about her in several magazines as she's one of the pioneering women out there as her work stems in soft lithography and patterning of electronic polymers. She's received numerous awards and has a quite impressive resume as she is an Ivy League person, having received two degrees as a undergrad from UPenn before she headed for graduate school at Princeton.
This woman is amazing in what she's accomplished and I know a few guys out there who have gone to work for her (they were initially attracted to her, but she does amazing work so they are learnnig a lot). She's married guys, so sorry :)
Now, for her research profile!
"Our principal interest is to understand how specific micro- and nanoscale structures are generated in soft, complex systems, and how these structures in turn affect macroscopic properties and device performance. With improved understanding on these materials, we hope to exploit their structure-property relationships in the development of various applications in advanced technologies. Research in this area can be further divided into three sub-topics:
(A) Nanoscale Structure Characterization and Application Development of New Multicomponent Polymers
The development of new synthetic chemistries, such as atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and various other living free radical polymerization (LFRP) techniques has enabled the production of block copolymers other than the limited selection (e.g., styrene-diene type block copolymers) accessible through classical anionic polymerization. These LFRP routes will also allow flexible derivatization and functionalization, thereby opening the possibility of making a new library of block copolymers that were previously inaccessible. The diverse monomer chemistries amenable to this technique, coupled with the ease of polymerization, make living free radical synthesis an attractive means of producing block copolymers for nanotechnology-related applications.
Our group is interested in understanding the phase behavior and the structure-property relationships of these new materials. We expect these polymers to behave differently compared to model block copolymers that are made by anionic routes. In particular, block copolymers polymerized by living free radical routes generally have a broader chain length distribution. We would like to understand how this impacts phase behavior and macroscopic properties.
With better understanding of how structures develop in these systems and in turn how these structures affect macroscopic properties, we can begin to exploit these new materials for advanced applications. These block copolymers show great promise in a variety of technologies, including controlled-release applications and polymer-based opto-electronic devices.
(B) Soft Lithography and Novel Patterning Schemes for Plastic Electronics
Research in plastic electronics has been fueled by the promise of low-cost fabrication, lightweight construction, mechanical flexibility and durability as well as large-area coverage. Recently, researchers at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies have successfully demonstrated the fabrication of the world’s first electronic paper comprising a 64 by 64 array of organic transistors on a flexible backplane. This and other emerging technologies in plastic electronics point out that new age organic-based electronics can potentially be commercialized for novel applications, especially in the area of large area flexible displays, as well as wearable and disposable electronics.
Our research in the area of plastic electronics is focused on the development of new patterning and fabrication processes that are integratable with current processing techniques. For example, we have recently developed a purely additive contact printing technique, nanotransfer printing (nTP), which has enabled the transfer of complex and intricate features with nanoscale resolution over large-areas. This technique is highly versatile; we can routinely transfer a wide variety of functional materials from a stamp onto a range of substrates at ambient conditions. Using nTP, we have fabricated functional high-performance organic transistors and inverter circuits, as well as metal-insulator-metal capacitors on plastic substrates. We hope to extend this contact printing technique to fabricate thin film microbatteries for powering organic devices and plastic circuits.
In collaboration with researchers at DuPont, we have also developed a solventless thermal imaging technique for printing large-area plastic circuits. The functional devices on plastic substrates were printed using a commercial printer with speeds up to 1000 cm2/min. Future research in this area will involve materials development: we hope to widen the library of functional materials that are printable using this technique. Additionally, we will be focusing on the parallel assembly of devices over large-areas and their characterization.
(C) Self-Assembled Monolayers for Nanotransfer Printing and Nanoscale Organic Electronics
We have recently extended nanotransfer printing (nTP) to transfer patterns onto III-V semiconductor (e.g., GaAs) surfaces. This variation of nTP exploits interfacial chemistries that rely on thiol-based self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). Using similar techniques, we have also successfully fabricated nanoscale organic two-terminal devices where SAMs make up the active layer. Unlike direct evaporation of metal contacts on SAMs, SAM-based nTP is highly reliable; we have been able to make a large number of functional nanodevices reproducibly in this manner. Yet, the SAM surface is not well-characterized and the interfacial chemistry that is involved in printing is not well-understood.
We intend to better understand the interfacial chemistry and characterize the morphology of the SAM surface using a variety of surface characterization techniques. Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy (NEXAFS) experiments will be conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratories to examine the molecular orientation and packing of the SAM layer. Additionally, we will also be using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) to extract information about the SAM/substrate bonding chemistries. These experiments will be conducted in collaboration with research scientists at the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST).
Information about the SAM layer on a molecular length scale is crucial, especially for further development of the nTP and fabrication optimization of nanoscale devices that rely on molecular active layers. Our initial characterization will involve model SAMs that are based on simple alkane chains. With such information in hand, we intend to extend our investigation to examine semiconducting SAM layers. These molecules are especially interesting from the nanodevice fabrication prospective." - Yueh-lin (Lynn) Loo
Now, I'm sure you are all interested in actually seeing her, so let us get to the nitty gritty.
This woman is gorgeous! I love the dimples, they just make her so adorable! Also she's very classy seeming (as I've looked on her department website as well) and has quite a good number of grad students. She's now one of my heroes I think.
So her score?
Dr. Yuen-lin (Lynn) Loo is a HABANERO, baby!
