For his dissertation work, Dr. Blackburn worked primarily at NREL with Dr. Arthur Nozik, studying ultra-fast relaxation and charge-transfer processes occurring in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and QD interfaces. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Michael Heben at NREL, focusing on the applications of low-dimensional carbon in hydrogen storage and photovoltaics. He is a Senior Scientist and Group Manager at NREL, leading projects on a variety of fundamental and applied research topics. His work focuses on low-dimensional carbon and includes the synthesis, purification, separation, and characterization of single-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene. An overarching goal of his research is to produce highly pure, well-characterized, single-walled carbon nanotube and graphene samples that are rationally tailored for integration into renewable energy applications such as photovoltaics, thermoelectric devices, batteries, solar fuel generation, and fuel cells.

Research Interests

Charge separation and transport in nanoscale systems

Steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy of nanoscale systems

Solar photochemistry

Thermoelectric energy conversion

Synthesis, purification, separation, and characterization of single-walled carbon nanotubes

Synthesis, characterization, and device integration of graphen

Hydrogen storage

Photovoltaic materials and technologies

Education

Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder

B.S. Chemistry, Wake Forest University

Featured Work

Norton-Baker, B., Ihly, R., Owczarczyk, Z., Ferguson, A.J., Blackburn, J.L., “Polymer-free carbon nanotube thermoelectrics with improved charge carrier transport and power factor,” ACS Energy Letters, 1, 1212 (2016). DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.6b00417

Nenon, D.P., Christians, J.A., Wheeler, L.M., Blackburn, J.L., Sanehira, E.M., Dou, B., Olsen, M., Zhu, K., Berry, J.J., Luther, J.M., “Structural and chemical evolution of methylammonium lead halide perovskites during thermal processing from solution,” Energy & Environmental Science, 9, 2072 (2016). DOI: 10.1039/C6EE01047D

Ihly, R., Dowgiallo, A-M, Yang, M., Schulz, P., Stanton, N.J., Reid, O.G., Ferguson, A.J., Zhu, K., Berry, J.J., Blackburn, J.L., “Efficient charge extraction and slow recombination in organic-inorganic perovskites capped with semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes,” Energy & Environmental Science, 9, 1439 (2016). DOI: 10.1039/C5EE03806E

Schulz, P., Dowgiallo, A-M, Yang, M., Zhu, K., Blackburn, J.L., Berry, J., “Charge transfer dynamics between carbon nanotubes and hybrid organic metal halide perovskite films,” J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 7, 418 (2016). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02721

Ihly, R., Mistry, K.S., Ferguson, A.J., Clikeman, T.T., Larson, B.W., Boltalina, O.V., Strauss, S.H., Rumbles, G., Blackburn, J.L., “Tuning the driving force for exciton dissociation in single-walled carbon nanotube heterojunctions,” Nature Chemistry, 8, 603 (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2496

Avery, A.D., Zhou, B.H., Lee, J.H., Lee, E-S, Miller, E.M., Ihly, R., Wesenberg, D., Mistry, K.S., Guillot, S.L., Zink, B.L., Kim, Y-H, Blackburn, J.L., Ferguson, A.J., “Tailored semiconducting carbon nanotube networks with enhanced thermoelectric properties,” Nature Energy, 1, 16033 (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2016.33

Park, J., Reid, O.G., Blackburn, J.L., Rumbles, G., “Photoinduced spontaneous free-carrier generation of (7,5)-chirality enriched single-walled carbon nanotubes in a low dielectric solvent,” Nature Communications, 6, 8809 (2015). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9809

Ferguson, A., Bindl, D., Mistry, K.S., Dowgiallo, A-M., Reid, O.G., Kopidakis, N., Arnold, M., Blackburn, J.L., “Trap-limited carrier recombination in single-walled carbon nanotube heterojunctions with fullerene acceptor layers,” Phys. Rev. B, 91, 245311 (2015). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.91.245311

Dowgiallo, A-M., Mistry, K.S., Johnson, J.C., Blackburn, J.L., “Ultrafast spectroscopic signature of charge transfer between single-walled carbon nanotubes and C60,” ACS Nano, 8, 8573 (2014).

Bult, J.B., Crisp, R., Perkins, C.L., Blackburn, J.L., “Role of dopants in long-range charge carrier transport for p-type and n-type graphene transparent conducting thin films,” ACS Nano, 7, 7251 (2013).

Mistry, K.S., Larsen, B.A., Blackburn, J.L., “High-yield dispersions of large-diameter semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes with tunable narrow chirality distributions,” ACS Nano, 7, 2231 (2013).