Professor Prashant Sonar

Broad Area of Research and Research Interest 

Organic and Flexible Printed Electronics Organic Semiconducting/Conducting Materials and Optoelectronics Organic Electronic Devices (Organic Light Emitting Diodes, Organic Field Effect Transistors, Organic Light Emitting Transistors, Organic Photodetectors, Organic Photovoltiacs, Perovskites Solar Cells, Chemical Sensors, Memory Devices, Logic Circuits) Polymer Chemistry Materials Science Organic Bioelectronics Organic 3D Printed Electronics Supramolecular Chemistry and Nanostructuring Printable Flexible Prototypes Solution Processable Metal Oxide Semiconductors A/Prof. Sonar’s Google Scholar Citations:

http://scholar.google.com.au/citationsuser=wj2kHo4AAAAJ&hl=en
(i) A/Prof. Sonar conducted research work at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany (from August 2000 to October 2003) under the guidance of Prof. Klaus Mullen (Director) and awarded a PhD degree in Material Chemistry (Organic Semiconductors and Optoelectronic Devices) by Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat, Mainz, Germany  in 2004.

(ii) After completion of his PhD, A/Prof. Sonar joined as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Freie University of Berlin and worked on spin transition dendritic organometallic complexes with Prof. Dieter Schlüter. Dr. Sonar moved with Prof. Schlüter’s group at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich), Switzerland as a Postdoctoral Scientist and worked on thiophene based dendritic polymers for optoelectronic applications and stayed with his group till July 2006.

(iii) In August 2006, A/Prof. Sonar  joined as a Research Engineer at Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore and worked in a Visiting Investigator Program (VIP) group led by Prof. Ananth Dodabalapur. The project entitled “Organic / Polymer Electronics - Novel Materials & Device Structures for Applications in OPV, OFET & OLET” was heavily funded project (three phases) by Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and A/Prof. Sonar contributed significantly and proved to be one of the most productive team members.

(iv) In April 2010, A/Prof. Sonar was promoted to Senior Research Engineer to Research Scientist-I and then to Research Scientist-II in April 2011 and 2013 respectively. A/Prof. Sonar had done some phenomenal research work on diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) based and other class of printable high performance conjugated functional materials for organic electronic applications and became a leading expert researcher in this area. DPP dye based organic semiconducting materials and their performances are stellar results and the science of DPP is measured on a “log scale”, and is truly world-class. Many of these materials have led to world top class performance in devices, holds important achievements/breakthroughs and their straightforward industrial applications.

(v) From his Singapore work, A/Prof. Sonar published top notch more than 55 high impact factor papers and also filled 8 national and international patent applications. On the basis of Web of Science, A/Prof. Sonar ‘s 8 papers are in top 20 cited papers in Organic/Polymer Electronic from Singapore and also received more than 1700 citations alone from his Singapore research work. Due to his outstanding accomplishments, A/Prof. Sonar was nominated for the Singapore’s prestigious President Science and Technology award with other VIP members. Recently, two of his US patents was successfully licensed to the multinational Company.

(vi) In July 2013, A/Prof. Sonar received the Prestigious Future Fellowship from Australian Research Council and in July 2014, he appointed as an Associate professor in the School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

Research Collaboration
Since last more than 10 years, Dr. Sonar has extended research collaboration with the scientists of the following organizations:

• The University of Texas, USA
• National University of Singapore
• Nanyang Technology University, Singapore
• City University, Hong Kong
• Materia Nova Research Center, Belgium
• City University of Hong Kong
• Dalian University of Technology, China
• RMIT University, Australia
• Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Singapore
• Universidad de Valencia, Spain
• ISMN, Bologna, Italy
• University of Queensland

Research interests

• Functional Solution Processable Organic Semiconductors
• Organic Electronic Devices ( OFETs, OPV, OLEDS, Sensors, Photodetectors, Memory Devices)
• Polymer Chemistry
• Supramolecular Chemistry and Nanostructuring
• Printable Flexible Prototypes
• Organic Bioelectronics
• Metal Oxide Semiconductors

Professional Activities

• Editorial Board Member of 'Flexible and Printed Electronics"  (Institute of Physics, London)
• Member of Interview and Selection Committee, IMRE, Singapore (2012-2014)
• Member of A*STAR (Agency for Science Technology and Research) Chemistry Club-Singapore (2012-2014)
• Referee for Adv. Mater., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Energy and Envi. Sci., Chem. Commun., Chemical Science, J.  Mater. Chem., Polymer Chem., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., Org. Electron. J. App. Phys., Synth. Met., Appl. Phys. Lett., Macromolecules, Polymer, RSC Adv., ACS Appl. Mater. Interface etc
• Reviewers for Proposals (American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and Kentucky Science & Engineering Foundation-USA,  Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Australian Research Council)
• External Thesis Examiner (Nanyang Technology University,National University of Singapore, Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research)
• Advisory committee member of “Recent Advances in Polymer Technology (RAPT), India” conference
• Advisory committee member of “Nanomaterials, Industrial Polymers and Eco-friendly Coatings Perspectives and Challenges (NIPEC), India” conference
• Advisory committee member of “First National Conference on Innovations in Chemistry - Laboratory to Society (ICLS-2013)”, India on March 11, 2013
• Advisory committee member of “International Conference on Innovations in Chemical Sciences”, India for 2014