Research Profile


Dr. Rafik Addou is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he has been since August 2024. Specializing in interface and surface science of 2D materials, Dr. Addou has published over 90 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, accumulating more than 10,000 citations according to Google Scholar. Prior to joining UTD, he served as a Senior Research Scientist at CBN Nano Technologies from 2021 to 2024, having originally joined the company as a surface chemist.

Dr. Addou’s previous experience includes a position as a Surface Scientist and Lab Manager at Oregon State University from 2018 to 2021. At Oregon State, he managed the Ambient Pressure Surface Characterization Lab in the Department of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, overseeing facilities such as ambient pressure XPS and STM.

Before his tenure at Oregon State University, Dr. Addou was a Research Scientist in Dr. Robert Wallace's lab at UTD from 2013 to 2018. His early career included a postdoctoral fellowship (2010-2013) at the University of South Florida, working in Dr. Matthias Batzill’s lab. His research has concentrated on the interface and surface science of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides.

Dr. Addou is an active reviewer for the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the Institute of Physics. His extensive publication record includes articles in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, and APL, along with two book chapters. He recently edited a book on defects in 2D materials.

Education
• PhD, Materials Science (2010), School of Mines (Now University of Lorraine), Nancy (France)
• MS, Materials Science (2006), Aix-Marseille University, Marseille France)
• BS, Physics (2004), Mohamed I University, Oujda (Morocco)

• August 2024 - Present
Assistant Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Texas at Dallas
Richardson TX

• September 2023  - August 2024
Associate Adjunct Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Texas at Dallas
Richardson TX

• March 2021 - January 2024
Senior Research Scientist
CBN Nano Technologies Inc.
Ottawa, ON Canada

• December 2018 - February 2021
Surface Scientist and Lab Manager
College of Engineering
Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

• July 2013 - November 2018
Research Scientist
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson TX

• June 2010 - June 2013
Postdoctoral Research Physics
Physics Department

University of South Florida, Tampa FL

• November 2006 - March 2010
Research Assistant
Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL, France) & Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa, Switzerland)

Awards:
• 2015 - Electronic Materials & Processing Division Award (AVS 62nd).
• 2013 - Poster winner, best science category at the SWAN meeting(Austin, TX). 
• 2008 - First Prize for Poster presentation at the 3rd European School in Materials Sciences, Ljubljana (Slovenia)
• 2006 - Ph.D. Scholarship from European Network of Excellence for Complex Metallic Alloys.

Professional Memberships:
Materials Research Society - MRS
American Physical Society - APS
American Vacuum Society - AVS
Electrochemical Society - ECS

Research Interests
• Nanomaterials: 2D layered materials, oxides, semiconductors, topological insulators.
• Device interfaces, integration, and reliability
• Thin film technology
• Atomically Precise Manufacturing

Recent Publications
• Recombination kinetics and effects of superacid treatment in sulfur and selenium based transition metal dichalcogenides. 
M. Amani, R. Addou, G. H. Ahn, D. Kiriya, P Taheri, D.-H. Lien, J. W. Ager, R. M. Wallace, and Ali Javey. Nano Lett., 16 (4), 2786–2791 (2016)


• The Influence of Hydroxyls on Pd-Atom Mobility and Clustering on Rutile-TiO2(011)-2×1. R. Addou, T. P. Senftle , N. O'Connor, M. J. Janik , A. C.T. van Duin, and Matthias Batzill.
ACS Nano, 8 (6), 6321–6333 (2014)

• Growth of a two-dimensional dielectric monolayer on quasi-freestanding graphene.
R. Addou, A. Dahal and M. Batzill.
Nature Nanotechnology 8, 41-45 (2013)

• Monolayer graphene growth on Ni(111) by low-temperature chemical vapor deposition.
R. Addou, A. Dahal, P. Sutter and M. Batzill.
Appl. Phys. Lett. 100 021601 (2012)

• Structure Investigation of the (100) surface of the orthorhombic Al13Co4 crystal.
R. Addou, E. Gaudry, T. Deniozou, M. Heggen, M. Feuerbacher, P. Gille, R. Widmer, O. Groening, V. Fournée, Y. Grin, J. M. Dubois, and J. Ledieu.
Phys. Rev. B 80 014203 (2009)


Most Cited Publications
1. Defect-Dominated Doping and Contact Resistance in MoS2
S. McDonnell, R. Addou, C. Buie, R. M. Wallace, C. L. Hinkle.
ACS Nano, 8, 2880–2888 (2014)
649 citations
2. Near-Unity Photoluminescence Quantum Yield in MoS2.
M. Amani, D.-H. Lien, D. Kiriya, J. Xiao, A. Azcatl, J. Noh, S. Madhvapathy, R. Addou, S. KC, M. Dubey, S.-C. Lee, Jr-H. He, J. Ager, X. Zhang, E. Yablonovitch, K. Cho, R. M. Wallace, A. Javey.
Science 350, 1065-1068 (2015)
517 citations
3. Atomically thin resonant tunnel diodes built from synthetic van der Waals heterostructures
Y.-C. Lin, R. K. Ghosh, R. Addou, N. Lu, S. M. Eichfeld, H. Zhu, M.-Y. Li, X. Peng, M. J. Kim, L.-J. Li, R. M. Wallace, S. Datta, and J. A. Robinson
Nat. Commun., 6, 7311 (2015)
316 citation
4. Manganese Doping of Monolayer MoS2: The Substrate is Critical
K. Zhang, S. Feng, J. Wang, A. Azcatl, N. Lu, R. Addou, N. Wang, C. Zhou, J. Lerach, V. Bojan, M. J. Kim, L.-Q. Chen, R. M. Wallace, M. Terrones, J. Zhu and J. A. Robinson
Nano Lett., 15, 6586–6591 (2015)
312 citations
5. Surface defects on Natural MoS2. R. Addou
L. Colombo and R. M. Wallace
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 7, 11921-11929 (2015)
275 Citations

Professional Profiles:
Researcher ID. C-8992-2013
Scopus
LinkedIn
Publons
Google Scholar
Research Gate
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