Van der Waals heterostructures in the 2D limit have emerged as next-generation hybrid materials with predesigned periodic skeletons in plane, highly ordered topological structures across large scale, and well-tuned interfacial interaction and processes, greatly enriching the material library with tailored solid-state properties. Organic molecules have demonstrated great feasibility in tailoring the doping of 2D inorganic materials through ground-state charge transfer process. Besides, organic semiconductors have high extinction coefficients and thus strong light absorption in thin films, due to the large wavefunction overlap between the electronic ground state and the lowest excited state. The functionalization of 2D inorganics with an organic absorber layer can help to enhance the photon harvesting and detection capabilities. We are developing novel hybrid platforms consisting of 2D nanomaterials and organic molecules to demonstrate devices with performance superior to what has been achieved previously with the individual components. Intrinsic weaknesses including the limited light absorption and minority carrier trapping of 2D materials, the short exciton diffusion length and relatively low carrier mobility of organic semiconductors, can be compensated by appropriately constructing the heterostructures and carefully engineering their interfaces.

Flexible (opto)electronic devices with combined features of mechanical conformability, high performance and operational stability are highly desired for the health monitoring, energy harvesting, and soft robotics applications. Given their intrinsically flexible nature, tunable optical and electronic properties, and the feasibility in low-cost solution processes, organic semiconductors and vdW heterostructures foresee remarkable application potentials in wearable and skin-integrated (opto)electronics.

With the growing aging population and prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, there is an increasing need for developing personal healthcare systems that can collect physiological parameters of individuals in a real-time and continuous manner, thus allowing early disease detection and timely response of health treatments. Human-integrated electronics have gained considerable attentions for their emergent applications in biomedical engineering and healthcare monitoring, communications, and human-machine interfaces. Aside from optoelectronic sensing components mentioned above, flexible electrodes for electrophysiological signal recording, flexible printed circuit board for data conditioning/processing, flexible energy harvesting/storage devices as the power source, and a soft electronic-skin interface that allows free-breathing of the skin are all essential building blocks toward a hybrid wearable system. Our group is devoted to developing high-performance electronic components and integrated bioelectronic systems, taking advantages of the cutting-edge technologies for flexible devices.