The investigations of organic-inorganic interfaces by James R. Engstrom, professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, focus on how to connect wires to organic transistors.
“Currently you evaporate metal atoms onto organic materials and cross your fingers,” says Engstrom, who is studying the chemistry of metalorganic bonding. One of the alternatives being considered by his group is a prefabricated interface, made by synthesizing films whose structure contains both metal atoms and organics.
“All of the easy problems have been solved,” Engstrom says. “I think we are tackling very difficult ones. There has been a lot of interest in using organics for molecular-based electronics, but no one has really attacked the problem of the interface.”
Integrated circuits of the future will likely require the integration of traditional silicon electronics with organic semiconducting and optically active materials. Such hybrids leverage the current high performance of silicon with the low cost and mechanical flexibility of organic materials. As organic electronics mature, the ultimate limit of integration may be reached with single organic molecules used to form the fundamental transistor. Although the prospects are bright, making connections becomes increasingly difficult as device dimensions continue to shrink. The marrying of such dissimilar materials as inorganic silicon with organic molecules and polymers to produce the required hybrid devices is not yet well enough understood.
while Professor 
