Luisa Whittaker-Brooks - Department of Chemistry

INORGANIC/MATERIALS CHEMISTRY

Professor of Chemistry

Widtsoe Presidential Endowed Chair in Chemistry

B.S., University of Panama
M.S., State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, USA
Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, USA
L'Oreal USA for Women in Science Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University

Phone: (801) 587-9973
Office: 4150 HEB
Email: lwhittaker@chem.utah.edu
Research Group

Activities & Awards

2021 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
2021 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry, Sloan Foundation
2020 W.W. Epstein Outstanding Educator Award, University of Utah

2020 Scialog Fellow, Negative Emissions Science (NES) Initiative, Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA)

2019 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Awards,RCSA
2018 Early Career Award, Department of Energy (DOE)
2018 Talented 12, American Chemical Society (ACS)
2018 Cottrell Research Scholar, RCSA

2017 GERA Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellow, American Physical Society (APS)
2017 Scialog Fellow, Energy Storage Technologies, RCSA
2017 Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Research, NOBCChE
2016 Young Leaders Award, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS)
2015 International Young Observer, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)
2015 Marion Milligan Mason Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2013 L’Oreal USA Fellowship for Women in Science, L’Oreal USA and AAAS
2011 Graduate Student MRS Gold Medal, Materials Research Society (MRS)

2007-2009 Fulbright Fellowship, US. Department of State, Institute of International Education

Research Interests

The Whittaker group aims to address important challenges related to the understanding of the relationships among the composition, structure, electronic structure, and properties of inorganic and organic nanomaterials, as well as their composites. Our efforts will be focused into three different directions in the areas of materials chemistry and nanotechnology, i.e., synthetic inorganic-organic chemistry, spectroscopy, and nanofabrication of functional devices.

Specifically, our group is driven by two of the greatest challenges of our time –energy beyond fossil fuel and environment and low cost electronics for daily use applications. We plan to embark in these new endeavors by synthesizing well-defined and high-quality materials for applications in solar energy conversion, thermoelectrics, batteries, and electronics. We will also test new hybrid concepts in terms of integrating several technologies that can simultaneously perform multiple tasks at once. For example, we envision to fabricate a multimodal energy device that can scavenge different kinds of energies for driving micro/nanosystems.

As far as training is concerned, members of our group will become proficient in a variety of techniques and will build-up top-notch expertise in inorganic-organic synthesis at ambient and high temperature conditions, morphological and crystal structure characterization (STEM, TEM, EEELS, SEM, etc.), in-house spectroscopy characterization (UV-VIS, PL, IR), and device fabrication (e-beam and photolithography).

To assist in understanding the electronic, magnetic and structural modifications of ensemble materials, members of our group are expected to acquire strong proficiency in different Synchrotron techniques such as, grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD), near-edge extended X-ray absorption fine (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy. Synchrotron studies will be performed at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Selected Publications

Luisa Whittaker-Brooks, William E. McClain, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Yueh-Lin Loo. Donor-Acceptor Interfacial Interactions Dominate Device Performance in Hybrid P3HT-ZnO Nanowire-Array Solar Cells. Adv. Energ. Mater. DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201400585
Luisa Whittaker-Brooks, Arthur Woll, Detlef Smingles and Yueh-Lin Loo. Sputtered ZnO seed layer strongly enhances photovoltaic behavior in hybrid organic solar cells. Org. Electron., 2013.
Luisa Whittaker, Tai-Lung Wu, Adam Stabile, G. Sambandamurthy, and Sarbajit Banerjee, Single-nanowire Raman microprobe studies of doping-, temperature-, and voltage induced metal–insulator transitions of W _xV_1–xO₂ nanowires. ACS Nano, 2011, 5, 8861-8867.
Luisa Whittaker, Christopher Patridge and Sarbajit Banerjee, A microscopic and nanoscale perspective of the metal-insulator phase transitions of VO₂: some new twists to an old tale. J. Phys.Chem. Lett., 2011, 2, 745-758.
Luisa Whittaker, Cherno Jaye, Zugen Fu, Daniel A. Fischer, and Sarbajit Banerjee, Depressed phase transition in solution-grown VO₂ nanostructures. Journal of the American Chemical Society,2009, 131, 8884-8894.