About

Hyunseok Kim is a researcher leading the Hyunseok Kim Research Group, which focuses on heterogeneous integration technologies for the future of electronics. The group is dedicated to advancing innovative solutions in electronic integration, contributing to the development of next-generation electronic systems. The research activities are supported by various sponsors, emphasizing the significance and impact of their work in the field of electronics.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Materials science
• Optoelectronics
• Nanotechnology
• Physics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Medicine
• Electrical engineering
• Optics
• Condensed matter physics
• Composite material
• Biomedical engineering
• Telecommunications
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Crystal Engineering Pathways Above, Below, and Between 2D Materials

  Advanced Functional Materials · 2026-02-08

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Two‐dimensional (2D) materials have opened new pathways for 3D thin‐film crystal engineering by overcoming the intrinsic limitations of conventional heteroepitaxy. Their atomically thin van der Waals surfaces enable interfacial interactions fundamentally distinct from those in 3D material systems, allowing the realization of crystal lattices, strain states, defect properties, and reconfigurable architectures unattainable with conventional epitaxy. Despite this promise, a critical gap remains in understanding and harnessing the full potential of 2D‐mediated crystal engineering. Most studies have focused on thin film growth above 2D layers for enhancing the crystallinity and heterogeneous integrability, whereas the equally powerful regimes below and between 2D materials remain largely unexplored. Here, we introduce crystal engineering pathways spanning ‘above (3D on 2D)’, ‘below (3D beneath 2D)’, and ‘between (3D confined within 2D layers)’ 2D layers, highlighting how these regimes collectively enable new crystals and interfaces largely inaccessible through conventional growth techniques. Through a comprehensive analysis of underlying mechanisms, experimental demonstrations, and remaining challenges, we provide a perspective on unlocking the full potential of 2D‐mediated crystal engineering for thin‐film growth and extending it into new regimes of mixed‐dimensional heterostructures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 840 In vivo imaging of tumor infiltrating lymphocyte dynamics and distribution in a breast cancer model

  Regular and Young Investigator Award Abstracts · 2025-11-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Atomic lift-off of epitaxial membranes for cooling-free infrared detection

  Nature · 2025-04-23 · 17 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Heterogeneous van der Waals integration of single-crystalline photonic nanomembranes

  Research Square · 2025-12-18

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Epitaxy of Emerging Materials and Advanced Heterostructures for Microelectronics and Quantum Sciences

  Small Methods · 2025-01-07 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Epitaxy, a process to prepare crystalline materials in nanostructures and thin films, is the core technology for preparing high-quality materials as a key enabler of next-generation microelectronics and quantum information system. Progress in epitaxy has been expanding the choice of materials and their heterostructures beyond the combinations limited by materials compatibility. However, the improvement of material quality, physical implementation of materials with unique properties, and integration of incommensurate materials in an architecture have been the challenging issues. Emerging materials, including 2D materials and quantum materials, have opened opportunities to study epitaxy mechanisms and realize various functional devices. Acceleration of discovery and progress in epitaxy research should be accomplished by "understanding of epitaxy under various circumstances at multiple length scales" and "integration of experiments and models." In the perspective, a basic summary of the status of epitaxially grown materials, the challenges in epitaxy research, and integration of modeling epitaxy and ultimate control of the epitaxy process with advanced characterization techniques are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Heterogeneous Integration of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors and 2D Materials: Processes, Applications, and Perspectives (Adv. Mater. 12/2025)

  Advanced Materials · 2025-03-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Heterogeneous Integration of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors and 2D Materials The heterogeneous integration of 2D materials and WBG enables the growth of high-quality WBG films and the 2D material-assisted layer transfer of them, facilitating flexible electronics and micro- LEDs. This cover image illustrates the transfer process of WBG/2D heterostructures and their potential applications in HEMTs and micro-LEDs. More details can be found in article number 2411108 by Soo Ho Choi, Yongsung Kim, Il Jeon, and Hyunseok Kim.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Organic Material Based Seed Coating To Improve Rhizosphere Activity and Productivity of Blackgram (Vigna mungo (L))

  Journal of soil science and plant nutrition · 2025-07-11

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Unveiling the PEDOT-polypyrrole hybrid electrode for the electrochemical sensing of dopamine

  Scientific Reports · 2025-03-31 · 15 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study presents the electrochemical sensing of dopamine (DA) using an electrode of polypyrrole/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT-PPy) thin film. Electrochemical analyses of the PEDOT-PPy thin film for DA sensing were conducted through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The CV analysis demonstrated that PEDOT-PPy exhibited superior electrochemical activity towards DA due to its enhanced conductivity as a high-conducting polymer composite. The DPV results indicated a linear concentration level of 5 nM to 200 µM with a minimal limit of sensing of 5 nM using the PEDOT-PPy electrode material. The fabricated sensor explored the sensitivity of 7.27 µA/µM cm2 at the 5 to 1000 nM DA concentration and the dopamine diffusion coefficient of 1.3 × 10–8 cm2/s. Additionally, the PEDOT-PPy electrode material displayed excellent reproducibility, selectivity, and stability. Therefore, the PEDOT-PPy composite electrode material shows excellent potential for outperforming other electrode materials in detecting DA.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A novel ZnO NRs/PVDF hybrid nanogenerator for wearable energy-harvesting and sensing applications

  Journal of Alloys and Compounds · 2025-05-01 · 16 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Low-cost, high-efficiency III-V photovoltaics enabled by remote epitaxy through graphene (Final Technical Report)

  2024-01-13 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access

  The goal of this project is to develop low-cost, high throughput and high efficiency GaAs photovoltaics (PV) by leveraging a combination of revolutionary manufacturing methods termed "remote epitaxy" and "Two-dimensional layer transfer (2DLT)" process with Dynamic-hydride vapor phase epitaxy (D-HVPE).Remote epitaxy enables the growth of defect-free single-crystalline films by copying the crystalline information from the substrate through graphene.Weak graphene-film bonding can allow fast, precise mechanical separation of the films from the graphene surface, thus permitting infinite reuse of the expensive substrate without expensive re-processing of wafer surface to produce semiconductor films [1][2][3].2DLT has proven its potential to overcome technical shortcomings of a very slow epitaxial lift technique, where etching of AlAs interlayer leaves damage on the wafer and handling of release layers occurs in chemical solution, because of the following reasons: 1) precise mechanical release from graphene does not damage the substrate (Ra < 1 nm), which can maximize reusability of substrates as post-release CMP treatment is not required, 2) fast mechanical release allows high throughput production of wafer-scale PV layers, and 3) Dry release using mechanically stable Ni metal handler allows further facile module integration.Together with the cost effective/high-throughput 2DLT, D-HVPE technique can enable high throughput epitaxy at low-cost due to high utilization rate and inexpensive precursors to produce large scale PV cells with an extreme growth rate at around 100 m/h without degrading the solar cell performance.Therefore, the approach proposed in this project can alleviate the two biggest cost barriers associated with GaAs solar cells, which are the cost of epitaxial growth and the substrate.Through this program the team aims to demonstrate the fabrication of both GaAs based solar cell with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 20% at a growth rate >60 m/hr while the single parent wafer is reused multiple times.Successful implementation of the proposed project will unlock a practical pathway to make the high efficiency and high throughput PVs viable in very large markets where Si is not practical including space, weight constrained and building integrated applications where flexibility or high specific weight/power are attractive. Significant Accomplishments and Conclusions:One of the most important outcomes of this project was that the team developed a method to directly grow graphene layer in wafer-scale on III-V substrates.Conventionally, graphene had to be transferred for remote epitaxy, which has imposed significant challenges in scalability, film quality, and substrate recycling, due to the transfer-related issues.The newly developed method of directly forming 2D layers by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) has realized wafer-scale, defectfree graphene formation for remote epitaxy, which has huge implications not only for solar cells but also in expanding the scalability and the possibility for heterointegration with dissimilar material platforms.Another important outcome was on better understanding of remote epitaxy mechanism.The growth of III-V on graphene is vastly different from directly growing films on III-V substrates, because the surface energy of graphene is very small, meaning that the nucleation density on graphene will be much lower than exposed III-V surfaces.Also, the graphene and the interface properties critically affect remote interaction through graphene.With this obtained knowledge regarding III-V remote epitaxy, we were able to achieve wafer-scale single-crystalline remote epitaxy, 100% exfoliation of the remote epitaxial films, as well as multiple times of GaAs wafer reusability demonstration.The general rule of thumbs found during this project will be a stepping stone for the growth and fabrication of various high-performance devices by remote epitaxy.Lastly, because remote epitaxy and 2DLT offer a pathway to isolate single-crystal membranes from the host wafers, the wafer-scale remote epitaxy processes developed in this project could open up pathways for new functionality and multi-functionality by heterointegration of remote epitaxially formed membranes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Diana L. Huffaker

  Cardiff University

  66 shared

• Wook‐Jae Lee

  Kongju National University

  41 shared

• Jeehwan Kim

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  26 shared

• Ting‐Yuan Chang

  University of California, Los Angeles

  26 shared

• Sang‐Hoon Bae

  Washington University in St. Louis

  20 shared

• Jin‐Young Choi

  Korea University

  18 shared

• Alan C. Farrell

  University of California, Los Angeles

  15 shared

• Hyun Kum

  14 shared

Education

• PhD, Electrical Engineering

  University of California Los Angeles

  2018

• MS, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

  Seoul National University

  2013