B.A., University of Oregon, 2003. Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara (Galen D. Stucky). Postdoctoral, California Institute of Technology (Nathan S. Lewis and Harry A. Atwater). Honors and Awards: Barry M. Goldwater Scholar (2001-2003), NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2003-2006), UC Chancellors Fellow (2007), Kavli Nanoscience Institute Prize Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-2009). Dupont Young Professor (2011), Cottrell Scholar (2014), UO RIGE Early Research Career Award (2014), Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar (2015), Sloan Fellow (2015). At Oregon since 2010.
The Boettcher solar materials and electrochemistry laboratory is focused on designing, synthesizing, and understanding materials for applications in energy conversion and storage.
Specific interests include the synthesis and study of heterogeneous electrocatalysts for water oxidation with defined molecular and nanoscale structures, the use of computer simulation and direct electrical measurements to understand semiconductor-electrocatalyst interfaces, and the development of high-performance III-V semiconductor solar conversion architectures using scalable and inexpensive deposition processes. To address these diverse challenges, the Boettcher group consists of students and postdocs from diverse backgrounds including chemistry (materials, physical, synthetic), engineering, and physics.
In particular we are interested in developing the fundamental science needed to enable direct solar water splitting architectures that integrate solar energy conversion with storage in the form of chemical fuel.
Figure 1. One vision for a solar water-splitting cell that utilizes only sunlight and water as inputs and generates H2 and O2 products. Researchers around the world are working on various fundamental and applied aspects of similar "devices".
We also work closely with groups within the University of Oregon and at Oregon State University through the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry. Basic and use-inspired research in the CSMC is focused on developing the fundamental solution chemistry to enable large area precise thin-film deposition from aqueous solution precursors. These materials have applications in electrochromic smart windows, solar cells, water splitting cells, heterogenous catalysis, displays, tunneling electronics, etc.
Please see the Boettcher Website for the latest updates!
Selected Recent Publications
Burke, M. S.; Zou, S.; Enman, L. J.; Kellon, J. E.; Gabor, C. A.; Pledger, E.; Boettcher, S. W. Revised oxygen-evolution-reaction activity trends for first-row transition metal (oxy)hydroxides in alkaline media. J. Phys. Chem Lett., 6, 3737, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01650
S.-E. Chun, B. Evanko, X. Wang, D. Vonlanthen, X. Ji, G. D. Stucky, and S. W. Boettcher, "Design of aqueous redox-enhanced electrochemical capacitors with high specific energies and slow self-discharge,"Nature Communications 6, 7818, 2015. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150804/ncomms8818/full/ncomms8818.html
Burke, M. S.; Kast, M. G.; Trotochaud, L.; Smith, A.; Boettcher, S. W. Cobalt-iron (oxy)hydroxide oxygen evolution electrocatalysts: The role of structure and composition on activity, stability, and mechanism. J. Am. Chem. Soc.,137, 3638, 2015. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b00281
Ritenour, A. J.; Boucher, J. W.; DeLancey, R.; Greenaway, A. L.; Aloni, S.; Boettcher, S. W. Doping and Electronic Properties of GaAs Grown by Close-Spaced Vapor Transport from Powder Sources for Scalable III-V Photovoltaics. Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, 8, 278-285 (back cover) DOI: http://doi.org/10.1039/C4EE01943A
Trotochaud, L.; Young, S.; Ranney, J.; Boettcher, S. Nickel-Iron Oxyhydroxide Oxygen-Evolution Electrocatalysts: The Role of Intentional and Incidental Iron Incorporation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 6744. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja502379c
Lin, F.; Boettcher, S. W. Adaptive semiconductor-electrocatalyst junctions in water splitting photoanodes. Nat. Mater. 2014,13, 81-86. http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3811.html
Mills, T. J.; Boettcher, S. W. Theory and simulations of electrocatalyst-coated semiconductor electrodes for solar water splitting. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 148304 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.148304
Wang, W.; Liu, W.; Chang, I.-Y.; Wills, L. A.; Zakharov, L. N.; Boettcher, S. W.; Cheong, P. H.-Y.; Fang, C.; Keszler, D. A. Electrolytic synthesis of aqueous aluminum nanoclusters and in situ characterization by femtosecond Raman spectroscopy & computations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2013, 110, 18397-18401. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/10/23/1315396110.full.pdf+html
Nadarajah, A.; Carnes, M. E.; Kast, M. G.; Johnson, D. W.; Boettcher, S. W. Aqueous Solution Processing of F-Doped SnO2Transparent Conducting Oxide Films Using a Reactive Tin(II) Hydroxide Nitrate Nanoscale Cluster. Chem. Mater. 2013, 25, 4080 4087. (Cover) http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm402424c
Ritenour, A. J.; Levinrad, S.; Bradley, C.; Cramer, R. C.; Boettcher, S. W. Electrochemical Nanostructuring of n-GaAs Photoanodes. ACS Nano, 2013, 7 (8), pp 6840–6849,http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn4020104.
Trotochaud, L.; Ranney, J. K.; Williams, K. N.; Boettcher, S. W. Solution-Cast Metal Oxide Thin Film Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2012, 134, 17253-17261. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja307507a