IMR Staff

Dr. Denis Pelekhov has joined the Institute for Materials Research as a Research Scientist, effective May 1, 2008. Denis holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics and conducted research at Los Alamos National Laboratory for over four years before joining The Ohio State University in 2002.

Many members of our campus materials community already know Denis as the manager of the ENCOMM NanoSystems Laboratory (ENSL). Through a new IMR partnership with ENCOMM, Denis will continue to work in this valuable capacity as an IMR Member of Technical Staff.

The ENSL facility is operated by ENCOMM (the Center for Electronic/Magnetic Nanoscale Composite Multifunctional Materials) and includes a photolithography lab, cleanroom, atomic force microscope, SQUID magnetometer, and the recently acquired FEI Helios NanoLab 600 Focused Ion Beam Mill/Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB/SEM) announced earlier this year.

Please join us in welcoming Denis to the Institute for Materials Research, and feel free to contact him at pelekhov.1@osu.edu or 614-292-9125 to schedule ENSL training.  Learn more about the ENSL and the facility’s capabilities.

IMR is pleased to welcome its second IMR Member of Technical Staff, Research Scientist Dr. John Carlin, to our community. John is no stranger to OSU as he is a 2001 PhD graduate who performed research on III-V compound semiconductor epitaxy and device processing during his graduate school days. From 2001-2004 he was a project manager and researcher at Amberwave Systems Corporation in charge of chemical vapor deposition for SiGe materials and strained Si devices. After a short stint in the research and development of gallium nitride (GaN) for light emitting diodes at Cree Inc., John became a Research Scientist in the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at AFRL in Dayton, Ohio where he worked on wafer bonding, epitaxy and characterization of GaN and other III-V materials and continued to obtain significant experience in contract-oriented research.

We are delighted to have recruited John to IMR with his more than 10 years of very relevant experience. John will be in charge of the new III-V Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) laboratory and user facility that will be placed at Nanotech West Laboratory in 2008 as part of IMR’s Wright Center on Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization (WCI-PVIC). Key among John’s roles as IMR’s newest member will be facilitating collaborations via the MOCVD and device fabrication labs, bringing new industrial users to our facilities, and creating research partnerships and third party funding opportunities. John will play a major role in the PVIC Wright Center by assisting Bob Davis regarding PVIC activities within Nanotech West.

John joins IMR Senior Research Associate Aimee Bross, who operates the electron beam lithography facility which is set to move to Nanotech West Laboratory, 1381 Kinnear Road. John’s office is located in the IMR Suite in room 218 at Nanotech West. He can be reached by phone at 292-6112 or by email at carlin.9@osu.edu.

The Institute for Materials Research is happy to announce that two new faculty members have joined The Ohio State University as part of the ongoing faculty cluster-hire in computational aspects of multiscale materials modeling.

Professor Sudarsanam Suresh Babu recently joined the OSU Industrial, Welding and systems Engineering Department as an Associate Professor. Professor Babu comes to OSU from the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio, where he was the Technology Leader of the Engineering and Materials Technical Division. Dr. Babu’s research focuses on fundamental understanding of phase transformations during processing of advanced materials through computational modeling and characterization.

Professor Ji-Cheng (J.C.) Zhao joins the OSU Materials Science and Engineering Department this quarter as an Associate Professor. Professor Zhao worked with GE Global Research as a Materials Scientist since 1995. His research interests include computational thermodynamics, phase diagrams, diffusion, and materials design.

Click here to learn more about Professors Babu and Zhao, their background and research interests.  Please join us in welcoming these two new faculty to the IMR community.

The Institute for Materials Research (IMR) has named three OSU colleagues as Associate Directors with appointments beginning March 1, 2007.

Malcolm Chisholm, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Robert Davis, Director of the Nanotech West Laboratories, and Michael Mills, the Taine G. MacDougal Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering have all agreed to serve the IMR community as Associate Directors.

IMR Director Steve Ringel noted, “The tremendous capabilities of Malcolm, Mike and Bob, their complementary perspectives on the materials field, and their proven leadership qualities will greatly benefit IMR in its mission to drive OSU’s materials enterprise toward becoming among the most elite in the nation. We are very fortunate to have these three outstanding individuals on board and I am looking forward to working closely with them.”

IMR Associate Directors will provide input and advice regarding the development and implementation of our strategic plans and programs, as well as assist in the coordination of IMR facilities and members of technical staff. They will be key IMR representatives linking faculty with IMR programs and services.