Research

Our vision is to develop a new generation of energy materials that can tolerate defects to achieve efficient performance when grown by cost-effective, scalable synthetic approaches. We are an interdisciplinary team, with interests spanning from creating new fundamental insights into carrier-matter interactions, through to utilising our skills in controlling complex materials and interfaces to produce high-performing devices for clean energy conversion.

Broadly, our research is clustered into three main areas covering fundamentals, synthesis and device development:

Perovskite-Inspired Materials

We are developing a unique class of sustainable semiconductors that can tolerate imperfections to achieve efficient performance despite high defect densities. Materials studied include bismuth-based perovskites, chalcohalides and chalcogenides. Read more in our recent commentary in Nature Communications.

Advanced Materials Synthesis

We have devised a spectrum of solution- and vapour-based methods for synthesising high-quality nanocrystals, thin films and single crystals from novel materials. These include chemical vapour transport, spatial atomic layer deposition, and ligand-assisted reprecipitation of nanoplatelets with controlled thickness.

Sustainable Energy Devices

Through careful control over bulk properties and interfaces, we have assembled complex structures to derive functionality from new materials, with applications spanning from photovoltaics, photoelectrochemical cells, light-emitting diodes and radiation detectors.