About

Matteo Pasquali is the A. J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University. He serves as Chair of the Chemistry Department and has previously held roles including Co-Director of the Carbon NanoTechnology Laboratory, Master of Lovett College, and member of the academic senate. Matteo received his Laurea from the University of Bologna and his PhD from the University of Minnesota. He joined Rice University in 2000 to establish a laboratory focused initially on soft materials, which has since evolved into a leading center for the scalable manufacturing and application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene materials with enhanced mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. His laboratory currently includes 11 PhD students and 1 postdoctoral researcher, targeting applications in wearables, energy transmission and harvesting, biomedicine, aerospace, and defense. The CNT materials developed in his lab have been incorporated into prototypes such as field emitters and data cables, as well as high-end products like audio cables. Matteo Pasquali's current research emphasizes understanding the mechanisms and phenomena of floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD) reactors to optimize CNT synthesis, aiming to make CNT-applied techniques and materials more accessible. He has advised over 90 graduate students and postdocs who have gone on to hold key positions across industry, academia, national laboratories, startups, and finance. His work is supported by a broad range of industries including international and national oil companies, automotive, aerospace, electronics, and high-tech sectors. Matteo is also an entrepreneur, having founded two companies: DexMat, which focuses on smart CNT materials, and NanoLinea, which develops medical applications of CNT fibers. His contributions have been recognized with numerous awards such as the NSF CAREER award, the Goradia innovation prize, the Schlack award for man-made fibers, and multiple NASA Tech Brief Awards. He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Research topics

• Nanotechnology
• Materials science
• Composite material
• Physics
• Engineering
• Biochemical engineering
• Electrical engineering
• Thermodynamics
• Optoelectronics
• Biology
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Industrial Adoption of Carbon Nanotubes

  Nano Letters · 2026-03-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Over the past 30 years, carbon nanotubes have emerged as one of the most exciting classes of nanomaterials due to their unique physicochemical properties. While challenges in nanotube synthesis and processing initially hindered their adoption, many of these barriers have since been addressed by research and manufacturing advances, resulting in substantial industrial application of nanotubes across multiple sectors. However, much of this progress is not known in the academic community. This perspective discusses the current landscape and outlook of industrial integration of carbon nanotubes and key factors mediating widespread integration across all major material-related areas of human activity.

  PublisherDOI

• PO-04-197 CARBON NANOTUBE FIBERS REDUCE SCAR-BASED REENTRANT ARRHYTHMIAS

  Heart Rhythm · 2026-04-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• High-concentration catalyst delivery in FCCVD carbon nanotubes synthesis via ferrocene bubbler

  Chemical Engineering Journal · 2026-05-10

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Martensitic-like transition between liquid crystalline and crystalline phases of prototypical discotic organic semiconductor

  ArXiv.org · 2026-03-26

  articleOpen access

  Phase transitions between crystalline solids occur either through the nucleation and growth mechanism, a process that is slow and destructive or through the diffusion-less and order preserving Martensitic route. In both organic and inorganic materials, Martensitic transformations are known to occur only between phases with crystalline symmetry. We demonstrate here that for canonical discotic organic semiconductor HAT6, the transition between the liquid crystalline columnar hexagonal phase (ColH) and the crystalline solid can occur through a mechanism that exhibits the hallmarks of Martensitic transformations: orientational correlations between parent and daughter phases, structural reversibility, and ultrafast kinetics. To access Martensitic-like solidification, the ColH phase of HAT6 is biaxially aligned in lithographically defined microchannels and crystallization is induced on deep supercooling. The transition mechanism is studied using a combination of polarized optical microscopy and X-ray scattering. At the largest accessible supercooling, the ColH - Crystal phase transition occurs at speeds of ~100 micrometer/s, a value that is seven orders of magnitude greater than the theoretical prediction for growth from isotropic melts. Our work suggests that Martensitic-like transformations can occur even between liquid crystals and crystals and are therefore more general than previously believed. Further, our work demonstrates that Martensitic-like transformations of anchored liquid crystals can be used to grow biaxially aligned crystals of organic molecules over arbitrarily long distances. As lattice alignment over large areas is desirable for devices like field-effect transistors and as several high-performance molecular semiconductors exhibit a ColH phase, our results hold general significance for organic electronics.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Martensitic-like transition between liquid crystalline and crystalline phases of prototypical discotic organic semiconductor

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-03-26

  preprintOpen access

  Phase transitions between crystalline solids occur either through the nucleation and growth mechanism, a process that is slow and destructive or through the diffusion-less and order preserving Martensitic route. In both organic and inorganic materials, Martensitic transformations are known to occur only between phases with crystalline symmetry. We demonstrate here that for canonical discotic organic semiconductor HAT6, the transition between the liquid crystalline columnar hexagonal phase (ColH) and the crystalline solid can occur through a mechanism that exhibits the hallmarks of Martensitic transformations: orientational correlations between parent and daughter phases, structural reversibility, and ultrafast kinetics. To access Martensitic-like solidification, the ColH phase of HAT6 is biaxially aligned in lithographically defined microchannels and crystallization is induced on deep supercooling. The transition mechanism is studied using a combination of polarized optical microscopy and X-ray scattering. At the largest accessible supercooling, the ColH - Crystal phase transition occurs at speeds of ~100 micrometer/s, a value that is seven orders of magnitude greater than the theoretical prediction for growth from isotropic melts. Our work suggests that Martensitic-like transformations can occur even between liquid crystals and crystals and are therefore more general than previously believed. Further, our work demonstrates that Martensitic-like transformations of anchored liquid crystals can be used to grow biaxially aligned crystals of organic molecules over arbitrarily long distances. As lattice alignment over large areas is desirable for devices like field-effect transistors and as several high-performance molecular semiconductors exhibit a ColH phase, our results hold general significance for organic electronics.

  PublisherDOI

• Quantum transport in ultrahigh-conductivity carbon nanotube fibers

  Physical review. B./Physical review. B · 2025-11-24

  articleOpen access

  We investigate quantum transport in aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers fabricated via solution spinning, focusing on the roles of structural dimensionality and quantum interference effects. The fibers exhibit metallic behavior at high temperatures, with conductivity increasing monotonically as the temperature decreases from room temperature to $\ensuremath{\sim}36\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$. Below this temperature, the conductivity gradually decreases with further cooling, signaling the onset of quantum conductance corrections associated with localization effects. Magnetoconductance measurements in both parallel and perpendicular magnetic fields exhibit pronounced positive corrections at low temperatures, consistent with weak localization (WL). To determine the effective dimensionality of electron transport, we analyzed the data using WL models in 1D, 2D, and 3D geometries. We found that while the 2D model can reproduce the field dependence, it lacks physical meaning in the context of our fiber architecture and requires an unphysical scaling factor to match the experimental magnitude. By contrast, we developed a hybrid $3\mathrm{D}+1\mathrm{D}$ WL framework that quantitatively captures both the field and temperature dependences using realistic coherence lengths and a temperature-dependent crossover parameter. Although this combined model also employs a scaling factor for magnitude correction, it yields a satisfactory fit, reflecting the hierarchical structure of CNT fibers in which transport occurs through quasi-1D bundles embedded in a 3D network. Our results establish a physically grounded model of phase-coherent transport in macroscopic CNT assemblies, providing insights into enhancing conductivity for flexible, lightweight power transmission applications.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Understanding the effect of transport phenomena in deep-injection floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition carbon nanotube synthesis

  Carbon · 2025-03-27 · 6 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Phase Behavior of Boron Nitride Nanotube Aqueous Dispersions

  Langmuir · 2025-05-05 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) are gaining significant interest due to their outstanding mechanical and thermal properties, as well as their potential to serve as a model nanorod system. Processing BNNT liquid crystalline (LC) dispersions enables precise control over BNNT orientation in macroscopic assemblies, while their low absorption in the visible spectrum facilitates studying LCs at exceptionally high concentrations. Here, we investigate the behavior of BNNTs in aqueous solutions stabilized by the surfactant sodium deoxycholate (SDC), examining the effect of BNNT purity and BNNT-SDC concentrations on lyotropic LC formation. We disperse up to 15 wt % BNNT in SDC solutions and use polarized light microscopy to detail the transition from an isotropic state to a biphasic regime, where isotropic and nematic domains coexist due to phase separation, to a single fully nematic phase. Cryogenic electron microscopy provides direct evidence of BNNT alignment within nematic domains. Our results show that enhanced depletion-induced attractions, driven by increased surfactant concentration, lower the threshold concentration of BNNT required to form nematic domains. In contrast, low surfactant concentrations relative to BNNT result in insufficiently coated nanotube surfaces, leading to poor dispersions and BNNT aggregation. Additionally, we fabricate well-aligned BNNT films from aqueous LC dispersions. Our findings advance the understanding of BNNT LCs, offering insight into controlling their orientation and highlighting their potential for high-performance materials.

  PublisherDOI

• Flow-induced 2D nanomaterials intercalated aligned bacterial cellulose

  Nature Communications · 2025-07-01 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  Bacterial cellulose is a promising biodegradable alternative to synthetic polymers due to the robust mechanical properties of its nano-fibrillar building blocks. However, its full potential of mechanical properties remains unrealized, primarily due to the challenge of aligning nanofibrils at the macroscale. Additionally, the limited diffusion of other nano-fillers within the three-dimensional nanofibrillar network impedes the development of multifunctional bacterial cellulose-based nanosheets. Here, we report a simple, single-step, and scalable bottom-up strategy to biosynthesize robust bacterial cellulose sheets with aligned nanofibrils and bacterial cellulose-based multifunctional hybrid nanosheets using shear forces from fluid flow in a rotational culture device. The resulting bacterial cellulose sheets display high tensile strength (up to ~ 436 MPa), flexibility, foldability, optical transparency, and long-term mechanical stability. By incorporating boron nitride nanosheets into the liquid nutrient media, we fabricate bacterial cellulose-boron nitride hybrid nanosheets with even better mechanical properties (tensile strength up to ~ 553 MPa) and thermal properties (three times faster rate of heat dissipation compared to control samples). This biofabrication approach yielding aligned, strong, and multifunctional bacterial cellulose sheets would pave the way towards applications in structural materials, thermal management, packaging, textiles, green electronics, and energy storage. NCOMMS-24-62603C. The potential applications of bacterial cellulose (BC) have been limited by challenges in aligning nanofibrils at the macroscale and creating BC-based multifunctional nanosheets. Here, the authors report a strategy of using shear forces from fluid flow in a rotational culture device to biosynthesize strong BC sheets with aligned nanofibrils, and BC-based multifunctional hybrid nanosheets.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ray H. Baughman (1943–2025) – A tribute from the Carbon Journal

  Carbon · 2025-10-07

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative research: Efficient algorithms for free boundary flows of complex fluids

  NSF · $164k · 2008–2012

• CAREER: Polymer Molecules in Complex Flows

  NSF · $375k · 2002–2007

Frequent coauthors

• Dmitri E. Tsentalovich

  DexMat (United States)

  68 shared

• Robert H. Hauge

  Rice University

  62 shared

• R. E. Smalley

  47 shared

• Steven B. Fairchild

  Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

  45 shared

• Natnael Behabtu

  Ian's Friends Foundation

  45 shared

• A. Nicholas G. Parra‐Vasquez

  Los Alamos National Laboratory

  44 shared

• Tyson C. Back

  Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

  44 shared

• Virginia A. Davis

  Auburn University

  43 shared

Labs

• Pasquali Research GroupPI

Education

• Postdoctoral Researcher, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

  University of Minnesota Twin Cities

  1999

• PhD, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science

  University of Minnesota

  1999

• Laurea, Chemical Engineering

  Universita degli Studi di Bologna

  1992

Awards & honors

• First Kavli Foundation Exploration Award in Nanoscience for…