Professor Robert Hoye - University of Oxford

Professor Hoye’s 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. His interdisciplinary team has 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, their research is clustered into three principal areas covering fundamentals, synthesis, and device development. The first, perovskite-inspired materials, are an area where they 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. Second, advanced materials synthesis involves devising 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. Finally, creating sustainable energy devices through careful control over bulk properties and interfaces. They have assembled complex structures to derive functionality from new materials, with applications spanning from photovoltaics, photoelectrochemical cells, light-emitting diodes, and radiation detectors.