Prof. Jaehyun LEE, who has received a Ph.D. in Nano Materials at SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology was appointed as a professor of New Materials Engineering at Ajou University in March 2017. Prof. LEE studied at the National Graphene Institute in University of Manchester as a visiting researcher from 2014 to Feb 2017 when he was working as a research professor at the Advanced Institute of Nano Technology.

Prof. LEE’s appointment was due to his research on the “Large-scaled single crystal Graphene synthesis” (research with Prof. Dongmok HWANG), which received a good evaluation for its research content. The thesis had been posted on the Science magazine in 2014 for providing a solution to the problem of high-grade graphene synthesis. Prof. LEE’s research team earned a high score because the team was composed of domestic researchers.

Another reason behind his appointment was his President Postdoctoral Fellow assignment selected in 2014. It seems that the fact that he owned enough research funds for early settlement (since he had 3 years of research period remaining) acted as a merit to his appointment. In 2014 our school’s Research Promotion team actively promoted the President postdoctoral fellow assignment and he was selected as the final candidate with the help of many hands. He said that SKKU is the only school that provides support to part-time researchers (students and postdocs).

Prof. Jaehyun LEE is researching on the technology that can mass-produce and solve the issue of 2D Nano materials synthesis. 2D Nano materials can be used as a material for energy electrode and also as the pivotal material for neuromorphic semi-conductor chips which have imitated human brain’s neural network. Many positive research results have been published but in order to achieve commercialization, one needs to extract good materials.

Prof. LEE said, “We have presented positive research results by conducting joint research with Prof. Dongmok HWANG and many other professors in SKKU. In SAINT (SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology), many professors with diverse majors have worked together under the single theme of “nano”, which allowed creative research and expansion of ideas.” He also mentioned that SKKU has a huge strength because students get to enjoy many high-quality equipment.

When he was researching at the University of Manchester as a visiting researcher, he mainly researched on 2D Nano materials including graphene. SKKU’s research on the 2D Nano materials has a high reputation in the global community but he needed a new challenge at a new place to think of new ideas and objectives. For this reason, Prof. LEE went to the University of Manchester as a researcher (Academic Advisor: Konstantin Novoselov, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics, 2010), where the research on 2D materials first began.

His dream as a professor is to produce talents who receive a Nobel prize. He wishes to help students become independent researchers by teaching research contents and behavior to produce outstanding outcomes that will surprise the world.