PM Distinguished Seminar: Halide Perovskite Semiconductors – A Journey into the Nanoscale

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Date

13 Jul 2026
Organiser
Time

10:00 - 11:30
Venue

FJ304, 3/F, Wing FJ, PolyU Map

Speaker

Prof. Sam STRANKS

Summary

Halide perovskite solar cells are generating enormous excitement owing to their use in high-performance optoelectronic devices including solar cells, LEDs and radiation detectors¹. However, their true potential in performance, stability and functionality has not yet been realised. In this talk, I will give an overview of this exciting materials family, their applications and remaining challenges for widespread deployment. I will outline a series of multimodal microscopy methodologies to unveil nanoscale insights into these materials, providing information about the impact of defects on both performance and stability for devices. Correlations between local structural and optical measurements reveal nanoscale sites that act as carrier traps and sites that seed degradation^2,3, as well as other exotic quantum phenomena⁴. Finally, I will showcase the wide versatility of halide perovskites to generate new electronically tuneable materials, including use of electroactive molecular components^5,6 and epitaxial, layer-by-layer growth of 2D/3D heterojunctions with clean interfaces⁷.

Stranks, S. D. & Snaith, H. J. Metal-halide perovskites for photovoltaic and light-emitting devices. Nat. Nanotechnol. 10, 391–402 (2015).
Doherty, T. A. S. et al. Stabilized tilted-octahedra halide perovskites inhibit local formation of performance-limiting phases. Science 374, 1598–1605 (2021).
Macpherson, S. et al. Local nanoscale phase impurities are degradation sites in halide perovskites. Nature 607, 294–300 (2022).
Guo, D. et al. Picosecond quantum transients in halide perovskite nanodomain superlattices. Nat. Nanotechnol. 20, 1771–1778 (2025).
Boeije, Y. et al. Tailoring Interlayer Charge Transfer Dynamics in 2D Perovskites with Electroactive Spacer Molecules. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 145, 21330–21343 (2023).
Boeije, Y. et al. Molecular Engineering of Interlayer Exciton Delocalization in 2D Perovskites. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147, 31541–31557 (2025).
Lu, Y. et al. Layer-by-layer epitaxial growth of perovskite heterostructures with tunable band offsets. Science 390, 716–721 (2025).

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Sam STRANKS

Professor of Energy Materials & Optoelectronics
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
University of Cambridge

Sam Stranks is Professor of Energy Materials & Optoelectronics at the University of Cambridge. He completed a BSc (Honours) and BA at the University of Adelaide in 2007. He then completed his PhD as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, receiving the 2012 Institute of Physics Roy Thesis Prize. From 2012-2014, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University, before holding a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2014-2016). Sam established his research group in Cambridge in 2017, with a focus on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors including halide perovskites, carbon allotropes and organic semiconductors for low-cost electronics applications such as photovoltaics, lighting and detection. He received the 2018 Henry Moseley Award and Medal from the Institute of Physics, the 2019 Marlow Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2021 IEEE Stuart Wenham Award, the 2021 Leverhulme Prize in Physics, the 2021 EES Lectureship, the 2025 Nevill Mott Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics and a 2026 Humboldt Research Award. He is a TED Fellow and co-founder of research group, a startup developing lightweight perovskite PV panels, research group, a startup developing ultra-sensitive radiation detectors for medical imaging, and research group, a not-for-profit developing education for school-age children around climate change solutions.

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