Sehee Lee
Professor
Mechanical Engineering
303-492-7889

ECES 142

MSE Areas: Nanostructured materials for batteries, electrochromic devices, electrochemical supercapacitors, opto-electronic and sensor applications, thin film rechargeable lithium batteries, intercalation materials

The electrochemical energy laboratory is set up to design and develop high performance materials for sustainable energy applications (mainly electrochemical systems such as batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, electrochromic windows, and photoelectrochemical devices). In this respect, our research covers a broad range of activities: new materials design and development, chemical synthesis, materials characterization, property measurements, fabrication of prototype devices and their evaluation, and a fundamental understanding of structure-property-performance relationships of materials. Nanostructured materials including metal oxides and metal chalcogenides are being investigated.

Selected Publications

  • “In Situ Engineering of the Electrode-Electrolyte Interface for Stabilized Overlithiated Cathodes,” T. Evans, et al. Advanced Materials, 29, 1604549 (2017).
  • “Optimized Silicon Electrode Architecture, Interface, and Microgeometry for Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Batteries,” D. Molina Piper, et al. Advanced Materials, 28, 188 (2016).
  • “Ultra-thin Solid-State Li-Ion Electrolyte Membrane Facilitated by a Self-Healing Polymer Matrix,” J. M. Whiteley, et al. Advanced Materials, 27, 6922 (2015).
  • “Stable silicon-ionic liquid interface for next-generation lithium-ion batteries,” D. Molina Piper, et al. Nature communications, 6, 6230 (2015). 

Selected Accomplishments

  • 2010 COTLABS Governor’s Award for High-Impact Research (Research team for the development of electrochromic windows).
  • 2009 R&D 100 Award, PowerPlane UX Microbattery – a solid-state thin-film battery.
  • Invited speaker in the National Academy of Engineering 2008 Japan-American Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, Kobe, Japan Nov 17-19, 2008.
  • “Thin film buried anode battery,” US patent (7,632,602).
  • “Nano-composite Materials,” US patent (7,722,966).
  • “H2O doped WO3, ultraTfast, high-sensitivity hydrogen sensors,” US patent (7,910,373).
  • “Method and Pd/V2O5 Device for H2 Detection,” US patent (8,084,265).