Canek Fuentes Hernandez

Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact

c.fuentes@northeastern.edu
360 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115

Office

330 Dana Research Center
617-373-6328

Research Focus

Flexible and stretchable organic microelectronics and optoelectronics, device physics and engineering for sensing and energy generation, high throughput manufacturing and heterogeneous integration

About

Canek Fuentes-Hernandez is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University. His research has included multiple areas of physical optics and photonics, investigations of the physical properties of organic semiconductors, and the physics and engineering of microelectronic and optoelectronic organic semiconductor devices, including organic thin-film transistors, organic photovoltaics, organic photodetectors, high energy density capacitors, and organic light-emitting diodes. They also included encapsulation, reliability, and sustainability of organic devices and their applications.

His current research interests lie at the intersection between electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and material science. They include novel flexible and stretchable sensors capable of autonomous operation and fabricated using high throughput manufacturing methods. His goal is to enable low-cost multimodal sensing surfaces that operate at a local level or as part of a wireless network infrastructure to create new ways for users to interact with the living environment and in areas that support global-scale applications ranging from healthcare to smart agriculture and large scale sensing.

Education

PDF, Electrical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007
PhD, Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, 2004
BS, Physics, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1998.

Teaching Interests

EECE2210 Electrical Engineering
EECE4790 Capstone
EECE5698 Organic and Printed Electronics

Research Overview

Flexible and stretchable organic microelectronics and optoelectronics, device physics and engineering for sensing and energy generation, high throughput manufacturing and heterogeneous integration

Prof. Canek Fuentes-Hernandez leads the electronic surfaces and organic interfaces laboratory (eSOIL) at Northeastern University (NU). Our research interests lie at the intersection between electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and material science. Our research focuses on the use of earth-abundant semiconducting materials, green-fabrication methods and novel device and system designs that operate by harvesting energy from the environment and contribute to the development of resilient human-centric ubiquitous intelligent systems that seamlessly integrate into everyday objects.

Our goal is to develop scalable power autonomous smart & connected surfaces that sense, compute and communicate information to address meaningful societal problems in areas such as healthcare, infrastructural and environmental monitoring.

Department Research Areas

Microsystems, Materials & Devices

Selected Publications

Zhang D., Fuentes-Hernandez C., Vijayan R., Zhang Y., Li Y., Park J-W, Wang Y., Zhao Y., Arora N., Mirzazadeh A., Do Y., Cheng T., Swaminathan S., Starner T., Andrew T.L., and Abowd G.D. “Flexible Computational Photodetectors for Self-Powered Activity Sensing” npj Flexible Electronics, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41528-022-00137-z.
Park, Y, Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Kim, K., Chou, W.-F., Larrain, F.A., Graham, S., Pierron, O.N, Kippelen, B. “Skin-like low-noise elastomeric organic photodiodes”, Science Advances, 7, eabj6565, 2021.DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj6565.
Larrain, F.A., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Rodriguez-Toro, V.A., Abraham, S., Kippelen, B. “Increasing free volume in conjugated polymers to facilitate electrical doping with phosphomolybdic acid”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 13, pp. 23260-23267, 2021.DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c05133
Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Chou, W.-F., Khan, T.M., Diniz, L., Lukens, J., Larrain, F.A., Rodriguez-Toro, V., Chang, Y.-C., Kippelen, B. “Large-area low-noise flexible organic photodiodes for detecting faint visible light”. Science, vol. 370, pp. 698, 2020. DOI: 10.1126/science.aba2624
Zhang, D., Park, J. W., Zhang, Y., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., Li, Y., Bhagwat, T., Chou, W.-F., Jia, X., Kippelen, B., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Starner, T., Abowd, G. D., “OptoSense: Towards Ubiquitous Self-Powered Ambient Light Sensing Surfaces.” Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 4 (3), Article 103, 2020. DOI:10.1145/3411826
Kim, G., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Jia, X., Kippelen, B., “Organic Thin-Film Transistors with a Bottom Bilayer Gate Dielectric Having a Low Operating Voltage and High Operational Stability.” ACS Applied Electronic Materials, vol. 2, pp. 2813-2818, 2020. DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.0c00487.
Jia, X., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Wang, C.-Y., Park, Y., Kippelen, B., “Organic thin-film transistors with high environmental operational and thermal stability through the use of a bilayer gate dielectric,” Science Advances, vol. 4, pp. eaao1705, 2018. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao1705
Zhang, X., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Zhang, Y., Cooper, M.W., Barlow, S., Marder, S.R. and Kippelen, B. “High performance blue-emitting organic light-emitting diodes from thermally activated delayed fluorescence: A guest/host ratio study.” Journal of Applied Physics 124 pp. 055501, 2018. DOI: 10.1063/1.5041447
Kolesov, V.A., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Chou, W.-F., Aizawa, N., Larrain, F.A., Wang, M., Perrotta, A., Choi, S., Graham, S., Bazan, G.C., Nguyen, T.-Q., Marder, S.R. and Kippelen, B. “Solution-based electrical doping of semiconducting polymer films over a controlled depth.” Nature Materials, vol. 16, pp. 474-480, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/nmat4818.
Zhou, Y., Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Khan, T.M., Liu, J.C, Shim, J. W., Dindar, A., Youngblood, J.P., Moon, R., Kippelen, B., “Recyclable organic solar cells on cellulose nanocrystal substrates,” Scientific Reports vol. 3, 1536, 2013. DOI: 10.1038/srep01536
Zhou, Y. Fuentes-Hernandez, C., Shim, J.W., Meyer, J., Giordano, A.J., Li, H., Winget, P., Papadopoulos, T., Cheun, H., Kim, J., Fenoll, M., Dindar, A., Haske, W., Najafabadi, E., Khan, T.M., Sojoudi, H., Barlow, S., Graham, S., Bredas, J.-L., Marder, S.R., Kahn, A., Kippelen, B. “A universal method to produce low work function electrodes for organic electronics” Science vol. 336, pp. 327-332, 2012. DOI: 10.1126/science.1218829.

Google Scholar Profile

Faculty

Sep 15, 2023

Announcing Fall 2023 PEAK Experiences Awardees

Several engineering students and science students mentored by COE faculty are recipients of Northeastern’s Fall 2023 PEAK Experiences Awards. Projects this fall are tackling a range of topics and modes with students developing an autobiographical zine, studying the development of amphibian limbs, building better rocket parts, and more. BASE CAMP AWARDS Farhad Ibrahimzade COE’26 & […]

Undergraduate

May 03, 2023

Teams Share Top Honors in Electrical and Computer Engineering Capstone Presentations

Two student teams tied for first place in the 2023 Electrical and Computer Engineering capstone presentations. One designed and built a modular video game controller to help increase accessibility; the other created a robotic poker-playing platform to aid in teaching and learning card games.

Students

Dec 22, 2022

Inaugural AJC Merit Research Scholars

Several engineering students and science students mentored by COE faculty are recipients of the inaugural AJC Merit Research Scholars.

Faculty

Feb 14, 2022

Self-Powered Sensorial ‘Skin’ the Future of Motion and Gesture Recognition

Groundbreaking research on flexible photodetectors with computational powers by Canek Fuentes-Hernandez, associate professor, electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and Gregory D. Abowd, dean of the College of Engineering and professor of ECE, has been published in npj Flexible Electronics. The researchers developed a new approach to achieve motion and gesture recognition using arrays of thin and flexible organic photodetectors distributed in space.