Dr Sanjeev Gambhir

Qualifications:

BSc and MSc (Organic Chemistry, Garhwal University, India), PhD (Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Petroleum, CSIR, India)

Research interests:

Nanotechnology has the potential to impact energy efficiency, storage, transportation, electronics and computing, materials and manufacturing. Nanotechnology presents a whole new spectrum of opportunities to build device components and systems for entirely new architectures. The field is interdisciplinary but everything starts with material science. My research challenges include:

  1. Oxidation of hydrophobic graphite to hydrophilic oxygenated graphene sheets (GO) and its appropriate functionalization for making it suitable for stable aqueous and organic dispersed GO sheets. Controlled reduction of functionalized GO to chemically converted graphene (CCG) while retaining the functionality and restoring the conducting properties of graphene. Elimination of time consuming and low yielding steps and making the process simple for industrial production of this material. Utilization of these aqueous and organic stable dispersions for fabrication of free standing paper like or foil type materials, which are the integral part of our technological society. Characterization of these films and paper for electrical and mechanical properties and confirmation of presence of oxygen groups on basal plane of GO and its selective removal on reduction with hydrazine hydrate. Further improving the electrical properties of these films by appropriate chemical treatment, without sacrificing the physical and mechanical properties. Using these stable dispersion of GO and CCG for fabrication of transparent electrodes , protective layers, chemical filters, components for electrochemical batteries, electronic or optoelectronic components and dye sensitized solar cells.
  2. Developing non-silicon based materials for energy conversion such as dyes for dye sensitized solar cells, where the dye can be functionalized thiophene oligomers or conducting polymers.
  3. Surface modification of conducting polymer films and their commercial exploitation for device fabrication.

Collaborations:

Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) node under National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program

Intelligent Plastic Pty Ltd

Consultant to Dyesol, Queanbeyan, NSW

Key publications:

Lynam, C.; Minett, A. I.; Habas. S. E.; Gambhir, S.; Officer, D. L.; Wallace, G. G. Functionalising carbon nanotubes. Internationl Journal of Nanotechnology (2008) 5 (2/3), 331-351.

Sanjeev Gambhir. Klaudia K. Wagner, David L. Officer. “Towards Functionalized Terthiophene-based Polymers”. Synthetic metals 2005, 154, 177-120

email : sanjeev@uow.edu.au
phone : +61 2 4298 1442
fax: +61 2 4298 1477
office : AIIM

Last reviewed: 14 October, 2009