NYU Tandon professor coauthors one of the leading materials journal’s most-downloaded articles

illustration showing EMI-blocking films

EMI-blocking films are critical for devices in aerospace and many other applications. A study revealing a low-cost means of producing these films, led by researchers at NYU Tandon, is one of the most-downloaded studies in a leading journal, Advanced Functional Materials.   

Research by a team including André Taylor, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NYU Tandon, was among the most downloaded articles in a top journal in the 12 months after its publication. 

The study, “Layer-by-Layer Assembly of Cross-Functional Semi-transparent MXene-Carbon Nanotubes Composite Films for Next-Generation Electromagnetic Interference Shielding,” which appeared in the October 31, 2018, issue of Advanced Functional Materials, detailed a method for producing relatively low-cost electromagnetic interference (EMI)-blocking composite films. The study has been cited 78 times, according to the journal.

To fashion the films, the team — which included Yury Gogotsi, Distinguished University Professor and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University, and Menachem Elimelech, Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University — employed spin-spray layer-by-layer (SSLbL) processing, a method Taylor pioneered in 2012. The system employs mounted spray heads above a spin coater that deposits sequential nanometer-thick monolayers of oppositely charged compounds on a component, producing high-quality films in much less time than by traditional methods, such as dip coating.

Lead authors also included Guo-Ming Weng, a post-doctoral fellow at NYU Tandon, and Jinyang Li, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Southwest Jiaotong University, in Chengdu, China.