Research Interests
Derek Schipper carries out research in organic chemistry and materials chemistry. His research program is based on the development of novel synthetic methods that allow efficient access to important conjugated materials. Ultimately, he seeks to utilize these materials in applications such as organic photovoltaics, light emitting diodes and field-effect transistors.
Research Projects
Our research is focused on tackling synthetic challenges posed in the context of conjugated organic materials. These materials are poised to make significant technological breakthroughs that will enable the advancement of flexible, lightweight, low-cost electronic devices such as photovoltaics, light emitting diodes and field-effect transistors. The performance of any device depends on the bulk properties of the active material. Improvements of the material properties arise from modification of the material on the molecular level and, therefore, stem from advances in the design and synthesis of new molecular architectures. Our ability to design and construct new materials is limited only by the synthetic tools available to us. Innovative new synthetic capabilities will allow the design of novel molecular architectures and enable the ability to answer fundamental questions about structure/function relationships. Ultimately, this will lead to enhanced properties for these new materials and, therefore, improved device performances.
Derek holds the Canada Research Chair in Organic Material Synthesis.