Klaus A. Mullen

Director. Research demonstrates a remarkable ability to open new fields in a broad range of topics, from synthetic organic chemistry to polymer chemistry and materials science. His synthesis of semiconductors and conductors, of two-dimensional carbon networks and graphenes (and their application to electronics), of new dyes and pigments, as well as of multi-dimensional polymers with complex shape-persistent architectures have attracted great attention in the material science community. Made ground-breaking contributions to the important problem of energy transformation and storage. A major theme of this work is to find effective substitutes for rare metals that are required in many new green energy technologies. One prominent scientific contribution is his work on graphenes. In contrast to commonly used graphene fabrication by exfoliation leading to less-defined materials, he developed a novel bottom-up approach, synthesizing well defined nanographene molecules and graphene. These are unique active components on nanoelectronics.