Taylor Aubry is a researcher in the Computational Science Center at NREL. She's working on two-dimensional materials as photocatalysts for solar fuel generation, enhancing the photoelectrical performance of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. She is interested in studying and controlling the unique photophysical properties these semiconducting materials exhibit due to quantum confinement effects.

Taylor received her bachelor's degree in physics and chemistry (joint honors) from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. From there, her desire to work on renewable energy technology led her to pursue her doctorate at UCLA in Professor Benjamin J. Schwartz’s group. Her graduate work focused on understanding structure and electronic property relationships in conjugated polymers for thermoelectric and photovoltaic devices. In particular, she showed that dodecaborane cluster-based dopants can produce free charge carriers in doped conjugated polymers due to their intrinsic ability to spatially separate the counterion and reduce Coulombic attraction.

Research Interests

Controlling photophysical properties of 2D-materials via morphology, doping, surface functionalization, and heterostructuring

Transition metal dichalcogenides as catalysts for solar fuel production

Carrier transport and optoelectronic properties of thin-film semiconductors

Education

Ph.D., Materials Chemistry, UCLA

M.S., Materials Chemistry, UCLA

B.S., Physics and Chemistry, McGill University

Associations and Memberships

Member, American Chemical Society

Member, Materials Research Society

Featured Work

Tunable Dopants with Intrinsic Counterion Separation Reveal the Effects of Electron Affinity on Dopant Intercalation and Free Carrier Production in Sequentially Doped Conjugated Polymer Films, Advanced Functional Materials (2020)

Dodecaborane‐Based Dopants Designed to Shield Anion Electrostatics Lead to Increased Carrier Mobility in a Doped Conjugated Polymer, Advanced Materials (2019)

Processing Methods for Obtaining a Face-On Crystalline Domain Orientation in Conjugated Polymer-Based Photovoltaics, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C (2018)

Sequential Processing: A Rational Route for Bulk Heterojunction Formation via Polymer Swelling, Handbook of Organic Optoelectronic Devices (2018)

Awards and Honors

Materials Chemistry Dissertation Award (2019)

University Fellowship, UCLA (2015)