College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Lasting impact

Physicist Joseph Shinar has developed an international reputation for his work in experimental organic semiconductor physics.
It's just a matter of time before organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) become a major player in the display industry and general lighting industries.

OLED-based displays are more efficient, much brighter, and have a much larger viewing angle than liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).

The first commercial products that incorporated OLEDs were Pioneer stereos in 1999. Motorola flip cell phones have also used the technology.

Electronics manufacturers are already producing demo OLED televisions, and these new TVs are expected to begin appearing in stores within two years.
Joseph Shinar, professor of physics and astronomy and a senior physicist with the Ames Laboratory, thinks that major commercialization of OLED technology is almost here.

When that major OLED commercialization finally comes, the American consumer can thank Shinar and his research group for helping pave the way.

Colleagues have described Shinar as a pioneering leader with a strong national and international reputation in OLEDs. In addition, he has recently been exploring the development of luminescent chemical and biological sensors structurally integrated with their OLED light source.

"This work is very strongly interdisciplinary in nature," Shinar said. "Our own group works on three different areas with OLEDs - on the basic physics of organic semiconductors, which are the building blocks of OLEDs, on the applied physics of OLEDs, and on the development of OLED-based luminescent chemical and biological sensors."

In the basic physics area, Shinar's group strives "to improve our understanding of OLED material and the OLEDs themselves, particularly their efficiency, stability and potential for other applications.

"We're interested in the basic scientific issues that immediately impact on this emerging technology," Shinar said.

Shinar's applied physics group pushes the envelope to see what they can do to make more efficient, brighter, and longer-lived OLEDs. To this end, Shinar has developed and studied novel intense white OLEDs (WOLEDs), demonstrating some of the brightest WOLEDs in the world.

Working with his wife Ruth Shinar, a scientist with the Microelectronics Research Center (MRC), the third Shinar group has worked with industrial physics to develop luminescent chemical and biological sensors structurally integrated with the OLED light source.

The group is working on developing OLED-based glucose and hydrazine sensors for NASA. Shinar, in collaboration with Ruth Shinar, Vikram Dalal, MRC director; and Louisa Tabatabai, collaborating professor in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and the National Animal Disease Center (NADC), has also received two National Science Foundation grants to develop an anthrax sensor, and to further develop the new sensor platform, so as to integrate the photodector for the sensors with the OLEDs and the sensing element.

The Shinars and Tabatabai's collaboration has also extended to the nation's food source. Together with Kelly Lager of the NADC, they have now received funding to develop field-deployable OLED-based sensors for porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus (PRRSV), a virus that causes $600 million damage annually to the U.S. pork industry.

"This has become a family project," he said. "I take the lead in supervising the development of the OLEDs for use in conjunction with the sensing elements, and Ruth takes the lead in supervising the development of the sensing elements for use in conjunction with the OLEDs."

Shinar has received three U.S. patents including one in 2001 on the new integrated OLED/fluorescent chemical sensor platform. Shinar has more than 190 scientific publications and his work is highly cited in the scientific literature, averaging over 300 citations per year.

Last fall, Shinar's research was recognized when he was named one of two recipients of the ISU Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research.