Kevin Yager

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Center for Functional Nanomaterials
Bldg. 735, Room 2018
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

(631) 344-7608
kyager@bnl.gov

Research | Education | Publications | Highlights

Research Activities

My research focuses on materials science and nanotechnology. Currently I’m most interested in non-equilibrium self-assembly. In particular, I study how non-equilibrium processing can be used to control the ordering of block-copolymer materials. I have recently demonstrated a suite of techniques that can be used to induce these self-assembling materials to form nanostructures beyond those known at equilibrium. I am also actively developing improved x-ray scattering techniques; especially with regard to exploiting machine-learning to enable autonomous scientific experiments.

Education

• B.Sc. (2001): McGill University (Montreal)
  • Major: Chemistry; Minor: Computer Science
• PhD (2006): McGill University (Montreal)
  • Physical Chemistry
  • Dissertation Title: Investigation of Photomechanical Surface Patterning in Azobenzene Materials

Selected Publications

• Yager KG (2024) Towards a science exocortex. Digital Discovery 3:1933–1957. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4dd00178h
• Yager KG (2023) Domain-specific chatbots for science using embeddings. Digital Discovery 2:1850–1861. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3dd00112a
• Yager KG, Majewski PW, Noack MM, Fukuto M (2023) Autonomous x-ray scattering. Nanotechnology 34:322001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/acd25a
• Doerk GS, Stein A, Bae S, et al (2023) Autonomous discovery of emergent morphologies in directed self-assembly of block copolymer blends. Science Advances 9:. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add3687
• Russell ST, Bae S, Subramanian A, et al (2022) Priming self-assembly pathways by stacking block copolymers. Nature Communications 13:. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34729-0
• Noack MM, Yager KG, Fukuto M, Doerk GS, Li R, Sethian JA (2019) A Kriging-Based Approach to Autonomous Experimentation with Applications to X-Ray Scattering. Scientific Reports. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-48114-3
• Liu J, Yager KG (2018) Unwarping GISAXS data. IUCrJ 5:737–752. doi: 10.1107/s2052252518012058
• Wang B, Yager K, Yu D, Hoai M (2017) X-Ray Scattering Image Classification Using Deep Learning. 2017 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV). doi: 10.1109/wacv.2017.83
• Rahman A, Majewski PW, Doerk G, Black CT, Yager KG (2016) Non-native three-dimensional block copolymer morphologies. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13988
• Majewski PW, Rahman A, Black CT, Yager KG (2015) Arbitrary lattice symmetries via block copolymer nanomeshes. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8448

Research Highlights

• Pushing X-rays to the Edge to Draw the Nanoworld into Focus
• Intense Lasers Cook Up Complex, Self-Assembled Nanomaterials
• Sweeping Lasers Snap Together Nanoscale Geometric Grids
• Pathway-Dependent Ordering of Block Copolymers
• Easy Alignment of Elongated Renewable Nanomaterials
• Smarter Self-assembly Opens New Pathways for Nanotechnology
• Data Science Heals Imperfect X-ray Scattering Datasets
• Growing Muscles on Tunable Nanocomposite Scaffolds
• Researchers Engineer New Pathways for Self-Assembled Nanostructures
• Transforming Advanced Nanoscience Data into Interactive Art
• PubSci at the Parrish Merges Science, Art, and Music
• Building a Printing Press for New Quantum Materials
• Physics on Autopilot
• Scientists Build Nanoscale Parapets, Aqueducts, and Other Shapes
• AI Discovers New Nanostructures
• Brainstorming with a Bot

• Artificial Imagination