UB Chemist to Use Award to Develop Materials for Smart Windows and Next-Generation Computer Chips

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Sarbajit Banerjee, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, is one of 11 scholars in the U.S. who has been awarded a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

The awards, which provide $75,000 to recipients, recognize early-career scientists who are leaders in integrating science teaching and research at leading U.S. research universities.

Banerjee will use the award to conduct research to better understand vanadium oxides, chemical compounds used in night-vision technologies and other applications. A major focus of his work is to adapt the compounds for use in "smart windows" that change color depending on temperature and as transistors for next-generation computer chips. Another focus involves trapping single nanowires of vanadium oxides, one-thousandth the size of a human hair, within device structures to measure individual nanowire conductivity.

Other research conducted by Banerjee and his graduate students on optimizing the production of graphene, a carbon nanomaterial, is being commercialized by a UB spinoff company, Niagara Falls-based Graphene Devices, which has obtained more than $600,000 in federal and state funding.

Banerjee also is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the foundation's most prestigious award for junior investigators, and an ExxonMobil Solid-State Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society.

Banerjee received his undergraduate education at the University of Delhi and his doctorate at Stony Brook University. Before coming to teach at UB, Banerjee was a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University.

The Research Corporation for Science Advancement of Tucson, Ariz., is a private foundation that aids basic research in the physical sciences at U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.