Vacancies

We are currently recruiting two fully-funded PhD students to start in October 2024.  One studentship has the potential to cover international fees. More details about the studentship can be found below and on findaphd.com. You are strongly encouraged to contact Robbie (robert.oliver@sheffield.ac.uk) before applying for the positions.

For each of these studentships, students with a good first degree (at least 2.i or equivalent) in physics, chemistry, materials science or a related subject would be ideally suited. 

Project 1: Unlocking Next-Generation Solar Cells: Integrating Novel Non-Fullerene Acceptors with Metal Halide Perovskites (International funding possible)

Summary: Metal halide perovskites are highly versatile with ‘tuneable bandgaps’, and so can be combined into ‘triple-junction’ photovoltaics, which promise efficiencies almost double a single silicon cell. In this approach, three semiconductors that absorb different colours of light are coupled to harvest more solar energy with vastly reduced losses. However, the bottleneck is the wide bandgap component of the triple-junction which absorbs the high energy blue light. The reasons for its poor performance are not fully understood, but recent work has identified energy-transfer between the perovskite absorber and the organic charge-transport layers as a crucial issue.  

In this project, we will study the energy-transfer process between 2.0 eV metal halide perovskites and newly synthesised organic charge-transport layers from a world-leading synthetic chemist, (Prof. Iain McCulloch FRS, Oxford). We target non-fullerene acceptors that have enabled breakthrough efficiencies in organic photovoltaics, yet similar breakthroughs are yet to be achieved in metal halide perovskite photovoltaics. You will understand newly synthesised non-fullerene acceptors using cutting-edge spectroscopy and implement optimised materials into metal halide perovskite solar cells with enhanced performance. This project has the potential to contribute to creating solar cells that are not only more efficient but also cost-effective, driving us to a sustainable energy future.  Full details are available here.

Project 2: Tracking Energy Flow in Metal Halide Perovskites for Improved Solar Cells (Home fees only)

Summary: Metal halide perovskites are the fastest developing solar cell technology in history, however we still do not fully understand how energy moves in these materials. Understanding, and ultimately controlling, energy flow in perovskites is crucial to unlock their full potential. This project exploits cutting edge breakthroughs in microscopy techniques, particularly stroboscopic interference scattering microscopy (stroboSCAT), to track how electrons move through metal halide perovskites on nanometre and picosecond length and timescales. 

In this project, you will push the time resolution into the femtosecond regime allowing you to spatially resolve the ultrafast dynamics in these materials. In addition, this project will capitalise on the unique near-field optical spectroscopy capabilities present at the University of Sheffield which allow tracking excitations on even shorter lengthscales (~10 nm). This technique additionally provides chemical information which will be used to identify the chemical origin of the defects in these materials which we can then target in our processing techniques to eliminate them. By combining these cutting-edge microscopy techniques, we will gain unparalleled insights into the photophysics and performance of metal halide perovskites at all the length- and time-scales that are important for making efficient solar devices. We believe that the knowledge we gain from this project will lead to significant advancements in the development of these materials which could contribute to society’s transition to a Net-Zero energy generation. 

Full details available here.

There are currently no open positions for postdoctoral researchers. However, we are always delighted to hear from researchers who hold their own funding or would like to apply for a fellowship to be hosted in the group. Please contact Robbie to discuss this in detail.

We work closely with the New and Emerging Semiconductors Group in Sheffield Physics. I encourage you to look for open positions in their group as well.