University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
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03/01/2013

James Johns joins Department of Chemistry faculty

James Johns, Ph.D., is joining the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor. Since 2011, Johns has been a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University, working with Professor Mark Hersam. He earned his doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under the tutelage of Professor Charles Harris. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry and physical chemistry from the University of Virginia.

As a graduate student with Harris, Johns probed the ultrafast dynamics and charge trapping of ultrathin organic semiconductors used in photovoltaics in response to photo-excited charges at metals surfaces using two photon photoemission.  Since joining the Hersam group, Johns has used scanning tunneling microscopy and optical spectroscopy to characterize and develop new ways of chemically functionalizing 2D materials such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide.

At the University of Minnesota, Johns will focus on the structure and optical properties of surfaces, interfaces, and 2D materials. His research will develop new experimental techniques that will facilitate a better understanding and subsequent control over charge and exciton transfer at surfaces and interfaces related to energy, photovoltaics, and photocatalysis at unprecedented length and time scales. He will also be studying the chemistry and physics of new 2D materials for electronics, and developing experiments which exploit their 2D nature to elucidate the electronic structure of interfaces commonly used in electronic devices.