Professor Prashant Sonar

Role in the Centre

A material scientist, Prashant Sonar develops high-performance conjugated π-functional organic semiconducting and conducting materials for next-generation electronic devices. These devices include: organic field effect and electrochemical transistors; organic and perovskites solar cells; organic, electrochemical and quantum dots displays; sensing; logic circuits; memory devices; and light-detection devices.  Prashant is enthusiastic about new applications including flexible, printable, wearable and stretchable prototypes useful for energy, environment, medical, health and low-power electronics. In QUT’s Centre for Material Science, Prashant is an investigator of the Soft Material program and his Organic and Printed Electronic group focuses on low-cost organic and hybrid semiconductor materials including design, synthesis, characterisation, and their use in various new technologies including molecular electronics, supramolecular electronics and bioelectronics. He also works with QUT’s Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices (program leader), Centre for Waste Free World (associate investigator) and the Centre for Biomedical Technologies (associate investigator). This provides him with a broad platform where he works on cutting-edge research areas with real-world applications. He is keen to work with national laboratories, industries and academics.

Short Biography

With a PhD from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany, Prashant undertook research work at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. He joined the Freie Universität Berlin followed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) as a postdoctoral scientist. In 2006, he moved to the Institute of Materials Research Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) as a Research Scientist, where he spent eight years as a member of its Visiting Investigatorship (VIP) Program team focusing on research into organic/polymer electronics – novel materials and devices structures for application in OPV, OFET &amp and OLEFET.  After receiving a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship, he joined QUT as a Future Fellow and Associate Professor in 2014. Here he established the Organic and Printed Electronics Research group and initiated device fabrication capabilities. He has published more than 150 high-impact publications and delivered more than 75 plenary, keynote and invited talks. Prashant is an editorial board member of Flexible and Printed Electronics, Materials Research Express, Frontier in Chemistry and Energies. Prashant is a recipient of the Yashwant Gungaurav Award and nominee for Singapore’s President’s Science and Technology Award, A*STAR’s Long Service Award, QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Performance Award, Theeman Exchange Program Award, and Foreign Collaborator Award, as well as a finalist for the Australia India Science, Research and Development Award. He is a Foreign Fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of Royal Chemical Society.

Selected Publications

“Developments of Diketopyrrolopyrrole Dye Based Organic Semiconductors for Wide Range of Applications in Electronics” Liu, Q.; Bottle, S.E.; Sonar, P. Adv. Mater. 2020, 1903882. Highlighted as Hot Topics in Organic Electronics.

“Bio-Waste Derived, Self-organised Arrays of High Performance 2D Carbon Emitters for Organic Light Emitting Diodes” Singh, A.; Wolff, A.; Yambem, S. D.; Esmaeili, M.; Riches, J.D.; Shahbazi, M.; Feron, K.E.; Eftekhari, K.; Ostrikov, K.; Li, Q.; Sonar P. Adv. Mater. 2020, 10, 1906176. Highlighted as Hot Topics in Carbon, Graphene and Graphite.

“Organic Interfacial Materials for Perovskite-based Optoelectronic Devices” Pham, H.D.; Xianqiang, L.; Wenhui, L.; Manzhos, S.; Ko Ko Kyaw, A.; Sonar P. Energy Environ. Sci. 2019, 12, 1177.

“Organic Field-Effect Transistor-Based Flexible Sensors” Yuvaraja, S.; Nawaz, A.; Liu, Q.; Dubal, D.; Surya, S.; Salama, K.N.; Sonar, P. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2020, 49, 3423-3460.

“Molecular Engineering Using an Anthranthone Dye for Low Cost Hole Transport Materials: A Strategy for Dopant Free, High Efficiency and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells” Pham, H.D.; Do, T.T.; Kim, J.; Charbonneau, C.; Manzhos, S.; Feron, K.; Tsoi, W.C.; Duraant, J.; Jain, S.M.; Sonar, P. Adv. Energ. Mater. 2018, 8, 1703007. Video abstract featured by Wiley.