"Halide Perovskites for Photovoltaic and Light-Emission Applications" by Prof. Stranks, Univ of Cambridge

Halide Perovskites for Photovoltaic and Light-Emission Applications

Metal halide perovskites are exotic hybrid crystalline materials developed out of curiosity. Unexpectedly, solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) incorporating these perovskites are rapidly emerging as serious contenders to rival the leading technologies. Photovoltaic power conversion efficiencies have jumped from 3% to over 22% in just seven years of academic research, and we are witnessing a similarly astonishing pace in LEDs. Here, I will give an overview of some of our key photophysical findings to advance understanding of the optoelectronic behaviour of the perovskite materials and operation of the state-of-the-art devices. I will cover topics including charge carrier diffusion and recombination, as well as ion migration and its potential impact on device performance. I will identify avenues towards eliminating losses by focusing on the relationships between micro- and nano-scale optoelectronic, chemical and structural properties of these materials as neat films and in operating devices. Understanding these properties is key to further development of the field and to bringing the perovskite technology to commercialisation.

Bio: Sam Stranks is a Royal Society University Research Fellow, TED Fellow, Principal Investigator at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He graduated from the University of Adelaide in 2007 with a BA (German and Applied Mathematics), BSc (Physics and Physical Chemistry), BSc (First Class Honours in Physics) and a University Medal. He completed his PhD as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University with Robin Nicholas, receiving the 2012 Institute of Physics Roy Thesis Prize for his work on carbon nantoube/polymer blends for organic solar cell applications. From 2012-2014, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Henry Snaith’s group at Oxford University where he was also a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College and Lecturer in Physics at Corpus Christi College. From 2014-2016, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working jointly with Vladimir Bulovic and Richard Friend (Cambridge). In 2016, he established his research group in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, which focuses on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors including metal halide perovskites, carbon allotropes and other organic semiconductors towards low-cost, transformative electronics applications including photovoltaics and lighting.

Sam received the 2016 IUPAP Young Scientist in Semiconductor Physics Prize for "pioneering discoveries in the field of perovskite solar cells and optoelectronics through spectroscopy” and in 2017 was awarded the Early Career Prize by the European Physical Society and named by the MIT Technology Review as one of the 35 under 35 innovators in Europe. In 2018, he was awarded the Henry Moseley Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for his work in pioneering the understanding of photoexcited states in metal halide perovskite semiconductor materials. He was recently listed by Clarivate Analytics as the seventh most influential researchers in the world through number of highly cited papers.