KAUST Associate Professor of Material Science and Engineering Derya Baran has been selected C&EN's Talented 12 by Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN's).
"Each year, C&EN introduces you to a dozen dazzling young scientists with our Talented 12 issue. The researchers we feature are always engaged in world-changing work."
Professor Deryawas recognized for her work on developing "organic photovoltaics and other energy conversion technologies that could broaden access to solar power."
Research
Professor Baran's research interests lie in the area of solution processable organic/hybrid soft materials for electronic devices. Such soft semiconductor materials possess a viable platform for printed, large area, stretchable and wearable electronics that can be used as solar cells, smart windows, OFETs, thermoelectrics, sensors and bio-electronics.
Professor Baran is particularly interested in interface engineering for organic/hybrid solar cells, transparent solar cells for building integrated photovoltaics and stability/degradation studies for long lifetime organic solar cells. She has led projects on i) conjugated polymers for electrochromic devices; ii) non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells; iii) multi-component and multi-layered solar cell devices; and iv) understanding the correlation between recombination and nano-morphology in solution processed solar cells.
Professor Baran aims to expand the applications of solution processable organic/hybrid semiconductors and to explore their limits in organic/hybrid thermoelectric devices and bio-electronics in the future.
