Welcome!

Watkins Research Group at University of Massachusetts Amherst

Our team is comprised of graduate students, post-docs and senior scientists with diverse technical backgrounds including polymer science and engineering, materials science, chemical engineering, electrical engineering and chemistry.  We develop, characterize and utilize nanoscale and hybrid materials for the fabrication of devices that exploit the unique properties of the materials that we create. Our approaches include direct imprint patterning of device structures using nanoparticle-based inks, additive driven self-assembly with brush block copolymers and other templates in which interactions among each of the components are designed to overcome barriers to creating well-ordered systems, materials chemistry through photothermal processing and the creation of large area nanostructured materials and devices through scalable manufacturing approaches, including roll-to-roll process platforms. We support this work with fundamental studies of phase behavior and transport in soft condensed matter systems and the dynamics of processes used in materials synthesis. Our science is then adapted to practical fabrication/manufacturing schemes for device applications including energy generation and storage, flexible electronics, metamaterials and sensors.  The UMass Amherst Advanced Print and Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing facility provides a unique resource for scaling our process technology for manufacturing, resulting in technology transfer to commercial partners for several of our applications. Our work in metaoptics has now transitioned to a funded start-up company that is engaged with Tier 1 partners for commercialization.

Recent Articles
  • Two-dimensional CeO2 woodpile nanostructures to enhance performance of enzymatic glucose biosensors. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2019, 11, 1821-1828
  • High-power lithium-ion microbatteries from imprinted 3D electrodes of sub-10 nm LiMn2O4/Li4Ti5O12 nanocrystals and a copolymer gel electrolyte. Nano Energy 2018, 52, 431-440.
  • Fabrication of patterned cellulose film via solvent-assisted soft nanoimprint lithography at a submicron scale. Cellulose 2018, 25(9), 5185-5194. 
  • Fabrication of plasmonic TiN nanostructures by nitridation of nanoimprinted TiO2 nanoparticles. Journal of Materials Chemistry C 2018 6(6),1399-1406.
  • Refractive Index Tuning of Hybrid Materials for Highly Transmissive Luminescent Lanthanide Particle–Polymer Composites. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2018 10(10), 9038-9047.
  • Bioinspired Photocatalytic Shark Skin Surfaces with Antibacterial and Antifouling Activity via Nanoimprint Lithography. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2018 10(23), 20055–20063.
News and Events
  • Collaboration with College of Engineering - carbon materials for Clean Energy Production and Renewable Fuel Production (Read More)
  • Hyemin Kim - Defense Dissertation (06/20/2024)
  • Bradley Mish ranks 157th in Boston Marathon (04/15/2024)
  • Job Openings - Two Post Doc Positions available 
  • Feyza Dundar won the second prize at the BASF Materials Innovation Center (09/18/2017)
  • Wenhao Li took 1st place at the ECS Battery Student Slam Symposium (09/11/2017)