Michael McGehee
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Materials Science
Solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be made cheaply from metal halide perovskites. These are semiconductors, materials that conduct electricity only under certain conditions, and they can be deposited from solution.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
metal halide perovskites
perovskite solar cells
wide bandgap semiconductors
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Synthesize all-inorganic triple-halide perovskites with band gaps of 1.9–2.1 eV and map which compositions mix into a single stable phase, using X-ray diffraction and composition analysis.
- Determine how precursor solution chemistry controls perovskite nucleation, film growth, and the resulting optoelectronic quality, using in situ photoluminescence and absorption spectroscopy.
- Map defect densities and degradation pathways in wide-band-gap perovskite films with cyclic voltammetry and spectroscopy, and test whether chlorine passivates defects.
- Develop improved interfacial layers that passivate surfaces and selectively extract charge carriers in wide-band-gap perovskite devices.
More about the research
The best perovskite devices today absorb red and near-infrared light. Their band gap, the energy needed to free an electron so it can carry current, is about 1.2 to 1.8 electron volts (eV). Materials with larger band gaps could capture more of the sun's energy when stacked in a solar cell, or could emit green or blue light from an LED. Today's wide-band-gap perovskites, however, waste energy at defects and break down in air and light.
Why it matters
Stable, high-quality wide-band-gap perovskites could let solar panels capture more of the sun's energy at low cost. They could also enable inexpensive green and blue LEDs. Widening the range of usable perovskite compositions could benefit makers of solar cells and lighting.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Heayoung Yoon
University of Utah, UT·Materials Science·Early-career
Visualize local defects such as mobile ions and charge carrier dynamics in metal halide perovskites during degradation and recovery, using electron-beam and near-field optical probes inside a scanning electron microscope.
Lea Nienhaus
Rice University, TX·Chemistry·Early-career
Develop new pairs of metal halide perovskites and triplet-accepting organic molecules to test why annihilator molecules such as diphenylanthracene work well in solution but poorly in solid-state upconversion.
Ou Chen
Brown University, RI·Chemistry
Test whether ultrathin perovskite nanowires can be built up from single metal-halide octahedra under mild, slow conditions, using in situ and ex situ characterization to reveal how they grow.
The school
University of Colorado Boulder: 36 labs on PI Pages, $718M a year on research, 447 research doctorates a year.
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