Diao Research Group

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in the lab ... is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him/her like a fairy tale.

If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity.

Madame Curie

Check out our latest group news

Mar. 2026

Congratulations to Sanghyun for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Understanding and Controlling Assembly Pathway of Functional Polymers for Tailoring Optical and Electronic Properties”. Great job Dr. Jeon!

Mar. 2026

Congratulations to Kavin for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Solution processible organic electronics and predictive modeling of emergent properties”. Great job Dr. Elangovan!

Mar. 2026

Congratulations to Sanghyun for receiving the Spring Graduate College Conference Presentation Award! This award will support his travel to MRS Spring National Meeting.

Mar. 2026

Congratulations to Janice for successfully defending her PhD thesis, “Understanding Hierarchical Chiral Assembly in Precise Conjugated Oligomers”. Great job Dr. Baek!

Mar. 2026

Congratulations to Sanghyun and Xiao for being selected as winners and Priyotosh as a finalist in the 2025 SCS Science Image Challenge!

Diao Group Tweets Follow @diaogroup

Ying Diao @diaogroup ·

10 May 2024

Congratulations to Xiao @xiaohuanxx for being awarded the Beckman postdoctoral fellowship! Xiao is on path to enliven 3D printing with dynamic structural color jointly mentored by @SingLabUIUC @RogersGroupUIUC, Damien Guironnet and myself. Go Xiao!

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Chemistry of Materials @chemmater ·

26 Apr 2024

Tuning the Solution Aggregate Structure of a PM7-Based Conjugated Polymer to Enable Green Solvent Processing of Organic Solar Cells

By @DiaoGroup et al. @UofIllinois @GeorgiaTech @NorthwesternU @BerkeleyLab @NIST

Read the paper 👉 https://go.acs.org/95T

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Oana Jurchescu @oanajurchescu ·

2 May 2024

Intramolecular non-covalent bond approach uses conformational locking (solid state) and unlocking (solution) to control polymer backbone conformation, solubility, processability, and liquid crystalline ordering.#JohnReynolds @jpcorreabaena @DiaoGroup

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Ying Diao @diaogroup ·

19 Apr 2024

Thanks to @OsujiChinedum for visiting us and sharing intriguing work on liquid-liquid crystalline phase separation. Also learnt a lot about field-induced structural transition and symmetry breaking in complex soft matter systems. And to @alexakuenstler for bringing him here!

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Join Us

We are looking for highly motivated researchers with collaborative spirit to join our adventures! We welcome candidates from any related disciplines to apply to our lab! If you are interested in joining the group, please check out our open positions for further information.

3514 Beckman institute

405 N. Mathews Ave.,

Urbana, IL 61801

Related Institutes

prof. Ying Diao

3265 Beckman institute

405 N. MATHEWS AVE.,

URBANA, IL 61801