Faculty

Jiwoong Park

  • Professor of Molecular Engineering in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
  • Research and Scholarly Interests: Nanoscale Materials, Chemical Physics
  • Websites: Park Group
  • Contact: jwpark@uchicago.edu
    773.834.3179
  • Office Location:
    Physical Sciences Division, James Frank Institute
    GCIS E219
    929 East 57th Street
    Chicago, IL 60637

Jiwoong Park is Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, having joined the University of Chicago in 2016.

Prior to joining PME, Prof. Park was Assistant Professor (2006 –2012) and later Associate Professor (2012 –2016) in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University.

He was a junior fellow (2003- 2006) at Rowland Institute, Harvard University.

Park earned his PhD from University of California, Berkeley in 2003 and holds a BS from Seoul National University (1996).

Park Group research focuses on the science and technology of nanomaterials. Our research is multidisciplinary; the group includes researchers with diverse backgrounds, including chemistry, physics, material science, and electrical engineering.

One main research goal is to build atomically-thin integrated circuitry. In order to build atomically thin integrated circuitry, we develop advanced growth, characterization and device fabrication methods for 2D layered materials, which include electrically conducting graphene, insulating hBN and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. For example, we reported the atom-resolution imaging of individual grain boundaries in graphene using transmission electron microscope (TEM) (Nature, 2011 [4]) and investigated their electrical properties (Science, 2012 [5]). We also developed a method for producing atomically thin lateral heterojuctions within individual 2D films (Nature, 2012 [6]), and reported the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth of wafer-scale three-atom-thick semiconductor films with high mobility (Nature, 2015 [9]). Our results enable the fabrication of electrically isolated active and passive elements embedded in continuous, one- and few-atom-thick sheets, which could further be manipulated and stacked to form complex devices at the ultimate thickness limit.

Another research goal is to explore novel electrical, optical, and optoelectronic properties of low-dimensional nanostructures, which will allow the development of advanced devices, including highly efficient solar cells, ultrasensitive infrared bolometric detectors, and novel valleytronic and spintronic devices. In the past, we reported multiple exciton generation (Science, 2009* [2]), optical intertube coupling (Nature Nanotech. 2011 [3]) and photothermal current microscopy (Nature Nanotech. 2009 [1]) in carbon nanotubes, supercollision cooling (Nature Phys., 2013* [7]) and giant circular dichroism (Nature Nanotech. 2016 [10]) in graphene, and the valley Hall effect in MoS2 transistors (Science, 2014*[8]). (*collaboration with the McEuen group at Cornell)

Selected publications

[10] C.-J. Kim, A. Sanchez-Castillo, Z. Ziegler, Y. Ogawa, C. Noguez, and J. Park, “Chiral atomically thin films,” Nature Nanotechnology, DOI:10.1038/NNANO.2016.3  (2016).

[9] K. Kang, S. Xie, L. Huang, Y. Han, P. Y. Huang, K. F. Mak, C.-J. Kim, D. A. Muller, and J. Park, “High-performance three-atom-thick semiconducting films with wafer scale homogeneity,” Nature, 520, 656-660 (2015).

[8] K. F. Mak, K. L. McGill, J. Park and P. L. McEuen, “The Valley Hall Effect in MoS2 Transistors”, Science, 344, 1489-1492 (2014).

[7] M. W. Graham, S. Shi, D. C. Ralph, J. Park and P. L. McEuen, “Photocurrent Measurements of Supercollision Cooling in Graphene”, Nature Physics, 9, 103-108 (2013).

[6] M. P. Levendorf, C.-J. Kim, L. Brown, P. Y. Huang, R. W. Havener, D. A. Muller, and J. Park, “Graphene and Boron Nitride Lateral Heterostructures for Atomically Thin Circuitry”, Nature, 488, 627-632 (2012).

[5] A. W. Tsen, L. Brown, M. P. Levendorf, F. Ghahari, P. Y. Huang, C. S. Ruiz-Vargas, R. W. Havener, D. A. Muller, P. Kim, and J. Park, "Tailoring Electrical Transport across Grain Boundaries in Polycrystalline Graphene", Science, 336, 1143-1146 (2012).

[4] P. Y. Huang, C. S. Ruiz-Vargas, A. M. van der Zande, W. S. Whitney,  M. P. Levendorf, J. W. Kevek, S. Garg, J. S. Alden, C. J. Hustedt, Y. Zhu, J. Park, P. L. McEuen, and D. A. Muller, “Grains and Grain Boundaries in Single-Layer Graphene Atomic Patchwork Quilts,” Nature 469, 389-392 (2011).

[3] D. Y. Joh, J. Kinder, L. H. Herman, S.-Y. Ju, M. A. Segal, J. N. Johnson, G. K. L. Chan, and J. Park, “Single walled carbon nanotubes as excitonic optical wires”, Nature Nanotechnology 6, 51-56 (2011).

[2] N. M. Gabor, Z. Zhong, K. Bosnick, J. Park, and P. L. McEuen. “Extremely efficient multiple electron-hole pair generation in carbon nanotube photodiodes”, Science 325, 1367-1371 (2009).

[1] W. Tsen, L.A.K. Donev, H. Kurt, L.H. Herman, and J. Park “Imaging electrical conductance of individual carbon nanotubes with photothermal current microscopy”, Nature Nanotechnology 4, 108-113 (2009).

Spatiotemporal mapping of photocurrent in a monolayer semiconductor using a diamond quantum sensor
B. B. Zhou, P. C. Jerger, K.-H. Lee, M. Fukami, F. Mujid, J. Park, D. D. Awschalom. Spatiotemporal mapping of photocurrent in a monolayer semiconductor using a diamond quantum sensor. Phys. Rev. X. 2020. Vol. 20, Pg. 011003.