Yana Vaynzof Receives ERC Consolidator Grant

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European Research Council awards nearly two million euros for enginneering perovskite materials for (opto)electronics

Physicist and Electrical Engineer Prof. Dr Yana Vaynzof has received a highly endowed ERC Consolidator Grant for excellent young researchers from the European Research Council (ERC). The funds will be used to support a research project in the field of metal halide perovskite materials. The overall aim of the project is the development of novel engineering approaches to control the properties of these materials and their application in electronic and optoelectronic devices. The ERC will provide approximately two million euros in funding for a five-year period. Yana Vaynzof is the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the TU Dresden and the Director of the Institute for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW). She was already awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2017.

Prof. Vaynzof’s research focuses on the development of novel semiconducting materials with particular focus on their integration into photovoltaic devices. One class of such materials that is particularly promising for high efficiency solar cells is metal halide perovskites. “Metal halide perovskites are a unique class of materials with extraordinary properties that are perfectly suited for application in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes” she explains. Together with her research group, Prof. Vaynzof has been investigating metal halide perovskites processed from solution in recent years, focusing on enhancing the efficiency and stability of perovskite photovoltaic devices.

The funded project, “PEROVAP – Engineering Metal Halide Perovskites by Vapour deposition” aims to develop novel methods to systematically manipulate the properties of thermally evaporated metal halide perovskites. “While solution processed perovskites have been intensively investigated in recent years, significantly less research was dedicated to their deposition by thermal evaporation – a solvent-free, scalable method of high industrial relevance.” explains Prof. Vaynzof. “By developing novel engineering approaches for the vapour deposition of metal halide perovskites, we can facilitate their integration into a range of industrial applications, even beyond photovoltaics.” This will be made possible by utilizing the novel spectroscopic methods Prof. Vaynzof previously developed via her ERC Starting Grant.

Yana Vaynzof studied Electrical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. After completing a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University (USA), she obtained her doctorate in Physics from the University of Cambridge (Great Britain). In 2014, she joined the Physics Faculty of Heidelberg University as a juniorprofessor. Since 2019, Prof. Vaynzof is the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the center for advancing electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TUD, and since January 2023 she is the Director of the Institute for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW).

Contact details:

Prof. Dr. Yana Vaynzof
Chair of Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Institute for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials and the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden - cfaed at TU Dresden
Tel. +49 351 463-42132
E-Mail: yana.vaynzof@tu-dresden.de / y.vaynzof@ifw-dresden.de

Matthias Hahndorf, cfaed / TU Dresden
Science communication
Phone: +49 (0)351 463 42847
E-mail: matthias.hahndorf@tu-dresden.de

Dr. Carola Langer, IFW
Press relations
Telefon: +49 (0) 351 4659 234
E-Mail: c.langer@ifw-dresden.de

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