View all Faculty

Christopher K. Ober

Francis Norwood Bard Professor of Metallurgical Engineering

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

headshot of Chris Ober aspect ratio 1-1
headshot of Chris Ober aspect ratio 1-1
Graduate Field Affiliations
Biomedical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Fiber Science and Apparel Design
Materials Science and Engineering
Sustainable Energy (minor)

Biography

Christopher Kemper Ober is the Francis Bard Professor of Materials Engineering at Cornell University. After several years in industry at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, Ober arrived at Cornell in 1986. His research is focused on lithography, patterning, the biology materials interface and control of surface structure in thin films. As a reflection of his contributions to lithography, Ober in 2015 was honored with the Photopolymer Science & Technology Outstanding Contribution Award. He is the 2006 winner of the American Chemical Society Award in Applied Polymer Science, and received a Humboldt Research Prize in 2007. In 2009, Ober was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and was awarded the Gutenberg Research Prize by the University of Mainz. Ober served as Interim Dean of Engineering 2009 – 2010. In 2014 he was a JSPS Fellow in Japan. More recently he was elected a fellow of APS (2014) and AAAS (2015) and made a SPIE Senior Member (2018). He is currently the Director of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility.

Research Interests

The ability to tailor the chemical structure of materials provides the ability to exquisitely control materials properties. Polymers, more than any other material, offer this possibility to fine-tune their thermal, optical and electrical properties through precise changes to molecular structure. Polymers are also the basis of the nanotechnology revolution, serving as photoresists used to create nanometer scale structures. Our research is therefore focused in three areas: (i) fundamental studies of self-organization in polymers, (ii) lithographic materials for microelectronics and biotechnology and (iii) new environmentally and biologically friendly materials. Each of these topics involves creative polymer synthesis using state-of-the-art facilities and methods as well as advanced characterization tools, most of which are located here at Cornell University. The research group, consisting of a mixture of graduate students and post-doctoral associates, takes part in highly collaborative research with leading groups at Cornell and around the world.

  • Polymers and Soft Matter
  • Advanced Materials
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Colloids and Interfacial Science
  • Materials Synthesis and Processing
  • Nanobio Applications
  • Nanotechnology

Research Projects

  •  Environmentally friendly, fouling resistant surfaces (ONR)
  •  Polymer brushes and interface engineering (NSF)
  •  Controlled sequence EUV resists (CINEMA Team/Intel)
  •  Polyelectrolyte brushes in nanoconfinement (NSF)
  •  Protective barrier coatings for fabrics (DTRA)
  •  Scissionable polymers (Intel/SRC)

Select Publications

  • Michael Tsuei, Hai Tran, Sangchul Roh, Christopher K Ober, Nicolas Abbott, “Using Liquid Crystals to Probe the Organization of Helical Polypeptide Brushes Induced by Solvent Pretreatment”, Macromolecules, 2021, In Press.

  • Amanda Leonardi, Aria C Zhang, Nilay Düzen, Nick Aldred, John A Finlay, Jessica L Clarke, Anthony S Clare, Rachel A Segalman, Christopher K Ober, “Amphiphilic Nitroxide-Bearing Siloxane-Based Block Copolymer Coatings for Enhanced Marine Fouling Release”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2021, 13(24), 28790-28801

  • Yuming Huang, Hai Tran, Christopher K Ober, “High-Resolution Nanopatterning of Free-Standing, Self-Supported Helical Polypeptide Rod Brushes via Electron Beam Lithography”, ACS Macro Letters, 2021, 10(6), 755-759

  • Mayank Misra, Ziwei Liu, Ban Xuan Dong, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Christopher K Ober, Fernando A Escobedo, “Thermal Stability of π-Conjugated n-Ethylene-Glycol-Terminated Quaterthiophene Oligomers: A Computational and Experimental Study”, ACS Macro Letters, 2020, 9(3), 295-300

  • Dung‐Yi Wu, Florian Käfer, Nicholas Diaco, Christopher K Ober, “Silica‐PMMA hairy nanoparticles prepared via phase transfer‐assisted aqueous miniemulsion atom transfer radical polymerization”, 2020, 58(17), 2310-2316

Christopher Ober's Google Scholar

Select Awards and Honors

  • National Academy of Engineering member 2023
  • SPIE Senior Member for accomplishments in advanced photoresist design 2018
  • Japan Photopolymer Science and Technology Outstanding Achievement Award 2015
  • American Chemical Society PMSE Division Distinguished Service Award 2014
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellow, TokyoTech 2014
  • Distinguished Polymer Lecturer, Pittsburg State University 2015
  • Student selected polymer speaker, University of Minnesota 2015
  • The Photopolymer Science and Technology Outstanding Achievement Award, The Society of Photopolymer Science and Technology - SPST 2015
  • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2015
  • Fellows, American Physical Society 2014

Education

  • B.Sc., Chemistry, University of Waterloo 1978
  • M.S., Polymer Science & Engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst 1980
  • Ph.D., Polymer Science & Engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst 1982

In the News