Franky So

Assoc Dept Head and Walter and Ida Freeman Distinguished Professor

Email: fso@ncsu.edu
Office: Engineering Building I 3070B
Website: https://mse.ncsu.edu/oemdlab/

Franky So is Associate Department Head and Walter and Ida Freeman Distinguished Professor. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He worked for Motorola and OSRAM Opto-Semiconductors for 14 years before he became a professor at the University of Florida. He was a Rolf E Hummel Professor of Electronic Materials in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. Since 2015, he joined the North Carolina State University and is currently the Walter and Ida Freeman Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Dr. So is currently a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, IEEE, OSA, SID, and SPIE. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Materials Science and Engineering Reports and Associate Editor of four other research journals. He chairs the OLED Symposium of the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference. Dr. So holds 100 issued patents and has 14 pending. He has over 200 publications and has a Google H-index of 73.

So’s current research focus is on electronics properties and photophysics of organic semiconductors and quantum dots used for OLEDs, solar cells, photodetectors, sensors and transistors. His recent works include: use of corrugated structures to fabricate OLEDs and perovskite solar cells, charge transport, injection and charge transfer excitons in organic semiconductors, dielectric properties of polymer-fullerene blends for photovoltaics, vertical permeable metal base transistors, vertical field effect transistors, PbS quantum dots photodetectors and phototransistors, and ferroelectric transistors.

Publications

Mitigating Illumination Sensitive Dark Current in Inverted Organic Photodiodes by ZnO Defect Passivation: Gadikar, A., Yang, Y., Pei, Y., Yi, J., Kotyrov, M., Gundogdu, K., … So, F. (2026, January 28), ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c22817
Air-stable n-type dopant for organic semiconductors via a single-photon catalytic process: Yan, L., Yang, X., Yang, M., Neu, J., Kashani, S., Giridharagopal, R., … You, W. (2025, June 6), Science Advances, Vol. 11. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adu8215
Deep Blue Phosphorescence in Polystyrenes Enabled by Gold(I) N-Heterocyclic Carbene Acetylide Complexes: Islam, T., Ahmed, S., Khan, A., Yin, S., Cabrera, C., Fahim, A. M. M., … Schanze, K. S. (2025, December 31), Inorganic Chemistry, Vol. 12. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.5c03600
Micropatterned Indium–Tin Oxide Grid Electrode for Vertical, Optoelectronic Field-Effect Transistors: Ho, S., Park, J., So, F., & Yu, H. (2025, January 14), ACS Applied Electronic Materials, Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.4c02172
Quantifying the Localization of Charges Generated upon Molecular Doping of Conjugated Polymers: Kwon, S.-J., Giridharagopal, R., Olanrewaju, Y., Neu, J., You, W., So, F., & Ginger, D. S. (2025, August 22), Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 8. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c11337
SEARS: a lightweight FAIR platform for multi-lab materials experiments and closed-loop optimization: Tali, R., Mishra, A. K., Lohia, D., Mauthe, J. P., Neu, J. S., Kwon, S.-J., … Ganapathysubramanian, B. (2025, January 1), Digital Discovery, Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5dd00175g
Two‐Stage Bipolaron Formation in Molecularly Doped Conjugated Polymers: Su, R., Chai, J., Pei, Y., Olanrewaju, Y., Yan, L., Neu, J., … So, F. (2025, August 6), Advanced Materials, Vol. 8. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202504357
Unconventional solitonic high-temperature superfluorescence from perovskites: Biliroglu, M., Tuere, M., Ghita, A., Kotyrov, M., Qin, Seyitliyev, D., … Gundogdu, K. (2025, May 28), Nature, Vol. 5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09030-x
Acid-Triggered Side Chain Cleavage Leads to Doped Conjugated Polymers of High Conductivity: Shanahan, J., Yan, L., Olanrewaju, Y., Kashani, S., Ade, H., So, F., & You, W. (2024, October 28), Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c09843
Hybrid Laser Cavity Design for Improved Photon Lifetime and Performance: Mehta, Y., Chien, K.-C., Lei, L., Gundogdu, K., Chang, C.-H., & So, F. (2024, March 8), IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 36, pp. 516–519. https://doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2024.3374261

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