William Scheideler

PhD student Sam Ong won runner-up for the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Flexible Printable Sensors and Systems in Atlanta. Ong's paper, co-authored with Professor Will Scheideler and former postdoc Minh Nhut Le, was titled "Breaking the Mobility-Ductility Tradeoff in Liquid-Metal-Printed ITO Flexible TFTs." Said Ong, "I was very excited to present my work at IEEE FLEPS and showcase our research to the flexible device community. I believe that there is a lot of potential collaboration within this space, and highlighting the compatibility of our high-performance materials in flexible electronics garnered a lot of interest and excitement." 

PhD students Samuel Ong and Simon Agnew '22, Md Saifur Rahman Th'25, and Professor Will Scheideler—with NIST physicist Lee Richter—co-authored "Tailoring Solid Phase Crystallization for Tunable Electronic Transport in Liquid Metal Printed 2D Oxides" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. The study showed highly-aligned, single-orientation grains which yield high-mobility devices, outperforming almost all other vacuum-free metal-oxide semiconductors reported to date. "We've always seen unique grain morphologies in our liquid metal printed metal oxides, so we probed the solid phase crystallization through highly-sensitive x-ray scattering techniques thanks to our collaborator, Dr. Richter. These results mark a critical step towards scalable manufacturing of transparent, high-performance electronics for next-generation flexible displays and sensors," said Ong.

PhD student Simon Agnew '22, Research Associate Xavier Cadet, and professors Peter Chin and Will Scheideler co-authored "Decoding disorder: Machine learning unlocks multi-wavelength and intensity sensing in a single indium oxysulfide phototransistor" published in Device. The paper presents machine-learning-enabled phototransistors that decode both light wavelength and intensity from a single printed device—no filters or sensor arrays required. This work points toward simpler, lower-cost, and more scalable multi-parameter sensing for flexible optoelectronics. "By combining scalable liquid-metal printing of ultrathin indium oxysulfide with data-driven analysis, we show how disorder—often viewed as a limitation in printed semiconductors—can be turned into a powerful sensing feature," said Scheideler.

Postdoc Yanan Li, PhD students Julia Huddy and Masha Klymenko, and Professor Will Scheideler coauthored "Spatial-Uniformity–Driven Bayesian Optimization for Rapid Development of Printed Perovskite Solar Cells" published in Small. (This came out of work recently funded by DOE in Scheideler's SENSE Lab.) "Metal halide perovskites are a promising emerging solar technology, but challenges in reliability and large‑area scalability still hinder widescale adoption. This work uses a machine‑learning–driven Bayesian optimization approach to improve the uniformity of printed perovskite films—addressing a key bottleneck for scaling low‑cost, roll‑to‑roll manufacturing and enabling higher‑efficiency, more reliable solar cells," said Scheideler.

Saifur Rahman Th'25 and Professor Will Scheideler coauthored "Liquid Metals in Radio Frequency Applications: A Review of Physics, Manufacturing, and Emerging Technologies" published in Advanced Electronic Materials. "Liquid metal materials are transforming soft and stretchable radio frequency devices by enabling highly-conductive, mechanically-adaptable components that can conform to wearable and bio-integrated applications," said Scheideler. "This work highlights the physics of energy loss in liquid metal systems, innovative fabrication techniques, and diverse applications."

Research Associate Le Minh Nhut, Saifur Rahman Th'25, PhD students Simon Agnew '22 and Sam Ong, and Professor Will Scheideler coauthored a paper published in Advanced Functional Materials on flexible amorphous metal oxide transistors incorporating graded 2D homojunctions. These ultrathin materials could be used for high-performance wearable displays for virtual and augmented reality.

PhD students Samuel Ong, Simon Agnew, and Md Saifur Rahman, and Professor Will Scheideler co-authored "Sub-nm kinetically controlled liquid metal printing of ternary antimony indium oxide transistors" published in Matter. "Our study shows how to harness the kinetics of liquid metal oxidation to control the thickness at the single-nm scale for synthesizing 2D transparent semiconducting films with finely tuned electrostatics for thin film transistors. These ultrathin metal oxides could enable flexible electronics capable of withstanding extreme bending stress and deformation," said Scheideler.

Professor Will Scheideler is co-author of "Recent Advances in 3D Printed Electrodes – Bridging the Nano to Mesoscale" published in Advanced Science. The review covers applications in energy and sensing, including emerging fabrication methods. "We report on strategies for transforming polymers into 3D architected metals and ceramics, and how the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence is changing the design of 3D-printed materials," said Scheideler.

Professor Will Scheideler authored "Nimble native oxides: Printing circuits from the skin of liquid metal," published in Matter, which focuses on new two-dimensional metal oxides that are thin, transparent, and flexible. "This preview highlights the opportunities for new applications of flexible and printed electronics and discusses a few of the most important challenges for this emerging research field," says Scheideler.

PhD students Simon Agnew '22, Sam Ong, and Saifur Rahman, research associate Anand Tiwari, and professor Will Scheideler co-authored "Hypoeutectic Liquid Metal Printing of 2D Indium Gallium Oxide Transistors" published in Small. Their paper explores how to effectively dope liquid metal printed 2D semiconductors to make high-performance devices with a scalable, roll-to-roll process for flexible, transparent electronics.

Professor Will Scheideler collaborated with Professor Kenji Nomura of UCSD to write a review titled "Advances in Liquid Metal Printed 2D Oxide Electronics," published in Advanced Functional Materials. Their paper highlights recent advances in ultrathin liquid-metal-derived 2D semiconductors for high-performance flexible circuits, display technology, and neuromorphic computing.

Research Associate Anand Tiwari, PhD student Saifur Rahman, and Professor Will Scheideler co-authored "3D Printed Microlattices of Transition Metal/Metal Oxides for Highly Stable and Efficient Water Splitting" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. The paper presents a novel 3D printing method to create low-cost and efficient electrodes for electrocatalytic hydrogen production. "The resulting materials have shown exceptional durability and electrocatalytic activity, making them promising for large-scale water splitting and sustainable hydrogen fuel production," said Rahman

PhD students Saifur Rahman and Simon Agnew '22, Research Associate Anand Tiwari, and Professor Will Scheideler co-authored "3D Woven Liquid Metals for Radio-Frequency Stretchable Circuits" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. "We've developed a new way to make better, more comfortable wearable electronics. The key is a special type of interwoven wire made from liquid metal that can stretch and bend without losing its ability to transmit signals."

Researchers Anand Tiwari and Sreejith Panicker, PhD students Julia Huddy and Md Saifur Rahman, and Professors Will Scheideler and Katie Hixon coauthored "Biocompatible 3D Printed MXene Microlattices for Tissue-Integrated Antibiotic Sensing" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. The study developed new electrode materials for 3D-printed porous electrochemical biosensors to monitor antibiotic release in tissue engineering scaffolds.

PhD students Huan Zhao and Julia Huddy, and professors Yan Li and Will Scheideler are coauthors of "Rational Design of 3D-Printed Metastructure-Based Pressure Sensors" published in Advanced Engineering Materials. The study found that metastructure architecture design can lead to substantial expansion of the sensing range. The practical application of this technology was demonstrated in an undergraduate ENGS 33 bridge project.

PhD student Julia Huddy and Professor William Scheideler co-authored "Rapid 2D Patterning of High-Performance Perovskites Using Large Area Flexography" published in Advanced Functional Materials. The study leverages high-speed flexographic printing to deposit critical materials for perovskite solar cells over large areas, creating a scalable method for manufacturing and future commercialization.

Postdoc Anand Tiwari, PhD students Shay McBride, Andrew Hamlin, Md Saifur Rahman, and Julia Huddy, and professors Geoffroy Hautier, and William Scheideler are co-authors of a study on designing 2D titanium carbide materials for hydrogen (H₂) production. Published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, the study developed strategies to dope 2D MXenes with sulfur and nitrogen to engineer their activity as efficient—as well as low-cost and earth-abundant—electrocatalysts for large-scale H₂ production.

PhD students Julia Huddy and Huan Zhao, research associate Anand Tiwari, and Professors Yan Li and William Scheideler authored "Graph Theory Design of 3D Printed Conductive Lattice Electrodes" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. This work aims to model the electrical behavior of 3D lattice structures to guide the design of 3D printed electrodes for electrochemical device applications.