Description:

Professor Michael Saliba Seminar

Join the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy for a seminar conducted by Professor Michael Saliba from the University of Stuttgart and Research Center in Jüllich, Germany. 

What: "The Versatility of Perovskite Materials for Optoelectronics"
Who: Assistant Professor Michael Saliba, University of Stuttgart
When: Wednesday, January 7, 2026 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM CT
Where: Ryan Hall, 4003, 2190 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208

Abstract: Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have created much excitement in the past years and attract spotlight attention. This talk will provide an overview of the reasons for this development highlighting the historic development as well as the specific material properties that make perovskites so attractive for the research community.

The current challenges are exemplified using a high-performance, multicomponent system for PSCs (including Rb, Cs, methylammonium (MA), formamidinium (FA) perovskites). The resulting compositions exhibit higher performances, resilience against external stressors and reproducibility. [1-4]

Unfortunately, many of the newly formulated liquid precursors often exhibit complex crystallization behaviour struggling to expel the typically used DMSO solvent. To delay the crystallization time, two strategies are proposed to remove the strongly complexating DMSO molecules through a) modified processing of the liquid thin-film and b) a coordination solvent with a high donicity and a low vapor-pressure leading to a marked improvement in the overall film quality.[5]

Lastly, interface manipulation, especially on top of the formed perovskite, is becoming a central topic to advance further. Typically, this involves chemical surface treatments with a complex interaction. Here, light annealing is introduced as a universal, non-chemical approach to modify the perovskite surface resulting in a reduced surface recombination.[6]

Speaker Biography: Prof. Michael Saliba is a full professor and the director of the Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv) at the University of Stuttgart. He holds a dual appointment at the Helmholtz Research Center Jülich, Germany. His research focuses on a deeper understanding and improvement of optoelectronic properties of photovoltaic materials with an emphasis on emerging perovskites for a sustainable energy future. One example for his groundbreaking research is the development and pioneering of a general strategy for the combinatorial synthesis and exploration of novel perovskite compositions. Michael is the Speaker of the Graduate School for “Quantum Engineering”. He was awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council.

Previously, Michael was an Assistant Professor at TU Darmstadt, a Group Leader at Fribourg University and a Marie Curie Fellow at EPFL with research stays at Cornell and Stanford. He obtained his PhD at Oxford University and MSc degrees in Physics and Mathematics at Stuttgart University together with the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research.

Michael has published 250 works attracting 55’000 citations and filed 5 patents in the fields of plasmonics, lasers, LEDs and perovskite optoelectronics. He was on the Early Career Board of Nano Letters, is on the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Energy Letters and a Senior Editorial Board Member of Materials Today. Clarivate lists him as Highly Cited Researcher for six times in a row since 2018. He was awarded the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Early Career Prize in Semiconductors by IUPAP, and named as one of the World’s 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review; he is also a Fellow of the Internation Science Council. In addition, Michael received the Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science from the Materials Research Society, the Curious Minds Award from Merck, the EU-40 Materials Award from the European Materials Research Society, the Wenham Award of IEEE-PVSC and the High Impact Award from the Helmholtz Association.

References:

[1] McMeekin, Saliba et al., Science (2016)

[2] Saliba et al., Cesium-containing triple cation perovskite solar cells: improved stability, reproducibility and high efficiency, Energy & Environmental Science (2016)

[3] M. Saliba et al., Incorporation of rubidium cations into perovskite solar cells improves photovoltaic 

[4] Turren-Cruz, Hagfeldt, Saliba, Methylammonium-free, high-performance and stable perovskite solar cells on a planar architecture, Science (2018)

[5] Zuo,…, Saliba; Coordination Chemistry as a Universal Strategy for a Controlled Perovskite Crystallization, Advanced Materials (2023)

[6] Kedia,…, Saliba; Light Makes Right: Laser Polishing for Surface Modification of Perovskite Solar Cells, ACS Energy Letters (2023)