Nara Kim

Assistant Professor, Docent

Soft Electronics group, Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE)

Presentation

Nara received a B.Sc. degree in Physics from Korea University in 2009. Later the same year, Nara started an integrated M.Sc. & Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST). Under the supervision of Prof. Kwanghee Lee, she was trained to investigate charge dynamics in conducting polymers and developed highly conducting polymers for flexible and transparent electronics, including solar cells, LEDs, transistors, and neural interfaces. In 2016, Nara received her Ph.D. degree and worked as a postdoc in the Heeger Center for Advanced Materials at GIST. In 2017, Nara joined the Soft Electronics group in LOE as a postdoc and continued to work in the group as a principal research engineer from 2019. Under the supervision of Prof. Xavier Crispin and Assoc. Prof. Klas Tybrandt, Nara developed multi-functional elastic conducting polymer composites for thermoelectric and battery applications. During 2019 and 2020, she was also involved in the project with Ligna Energy AB, a spin-out company from LOE. Nara became an Assistant Professor in 2021 after receiving the Swedish Research Council (VR) Starting Grant. Nara is PI within the Wallenberg Initiative Material Science for Sustainability (WISE) and the Advanced Functional Materials (AFM) center at LiU.

Publications

2026

Xian Xie, Yunpeng Zhong, Faheem Mushtaq, Shuaifei Zhu, Weijun Zhou, Aiman Rahmanudin, Klas Tybrandt, Siyu Tian, Ruiqin Zhang, Nara Kim, Jiang Zhou, Walid A. Daoud (2026)

Dissimilar Electrolyte Decouples Zn and MnO2 Redox Chemistry Enabling Dual-Electrode-Free Lean-Electrolyte Batteries Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.202524846

2025

Varsha Joseph Ariyamparambil, Nara Kim, Sae Young Lee, Reverant Crispin, Tae Hyun Park, Ziyauddin Khan (2025)

Correction: Water-in-salt hydrogel electrolyte for dendrite-free Zn deposition (vol 4, pg 1167, 2025) Energy Advances, Vol. 4, p. 1401-1401 (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d5ya90033f

Amir Mahmud, Nara Kim, Seyoung Kee (2025)

Elastic and Brush-Paintable Organic Ternary Thermoelectric Composites for Dual-Functional Wearable Sensors ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Vol. 17, p. 57535-57545 (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c15033

Varsha Joseph Ariyamparambil, Nara Kim, Sae Young Lee, Reverant Crispin, Tae Hyun Park, Ziyauddin Khan (2025)

Water-in-salt hydrogel electrolyte for dendrite-free Zn deposition Energy Advances, Vol. 4, p. 1167-1178 (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d5ya00169b

2024

Aiman Rahmanudin, Mohsen Mohammadi, Patrik Isacsson, Yuyang Li, Laura Seufert, Nara Kim, Saeed Mardi, Isak Engquist, Reverant Crispin, Klas Tybrandt (2024)

Stretchable and biodegradable plant-based redox-diffusion batteries Materials Horizons, Vol. 11, p. 4400-4412 (Article in journal)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d4mh00170b

Research

Soft Electronics

The Soft Electronics group develops composite materials, design concepts and devices, moving electronics into the realm of soft and deforming systems.

Teaching

Organic Electronics 1 (TNE103)

News

Women in materials science contribute to equality in research

Advanced Functional Materials (AFM) has developed a strategic initiative to support outstanding female researchers through co-funding

Nara Kim, in the background Xavier Crispin and Klas Tybrandt

Creating stretchable thermoelectric generators

For the first time, a soft and stretchable organic thermoelectric module has been created that can harvest energy from body heat. The breakthrough was enabled by a new composite material that may have widespread use.

Organisation

Power plant, organic electronics, a red rose.

Laboratory of Organic Electronics

World-leading competence in organic and hybrid materials, from design and modeling to applications in energy, electronics and bioelectronics. Sustainability focus and pipeline from science to commercialization deliver high-impact innovation.

Department of Science and Technology (ITN)

We research and teach in several technical and scientific disciplines in which our main areas are organic electronics, media, communications and logistics.