Scientist in charge

Bernard is an expert in perovskite materials and optoelectronic devices. In 2015, he joined Prof. Snaith’s group at Oxford University, recognized as a pioneering and world-leading team in this field. As a senior scientist in the group, he played a significant role in the acquisition and management of grant projects and supervision of graduate students, contributing to more than 30 scientific papers and patents. As a co-founder of HelioDisplay Materials, he has led the technical team since 2019. Between 2009 and 2014, Bernard gained experience in private research at CSEM in Switzerland, where he became a senior R&D engineer. He played a significant role in the management and acquisition of industrial contract research and multi-disciplinary international projects, gaining significant expertise in optics, (bio)sensors and systems integration.  Bernard trained as a physical chemist and obtained a PhD degree from EPFL in Switzerland. He obtained an early-career fellowship to work with Prof. Friend at the University of Cambridge in the field of polymer optoelectronics.

Scientist in charge

Dr. Alfonso G. Taboada studied Physics in the University of Oviedo. He completed his PhD in the Microelectronics Institute of Madrid, studying the optoelectronic properties of semiconductor nanostructures. Alfonso worked as a postdoc in the Centre for Astrobiology (Madrid) and contributed to the design and development of TiN and LKID detectors within the SAFARI/SPICA mission. In 2011, he joined the Solid State Physics department at ETH Zürich and worked on the application of the 3D-epitaxial techniques to the integration of III-V materials on Si substrates.

After his period at ETH, Alfonso switched to the private sector and joined a semiconductor laser start-up located in Zurich, Camlin Technologies CH. He led several projects related to the design, simulation and growth of new semiconductor laser structures. Alfonso joined DECTRIS in 2016, where he is involved in the development of new semiconductor sensor materials and novel 3D-packaging technologies.

Scientist in charge

Rainer F. Mahrt received his PhD working in the field of site-selective laser spectroscopy in disordered systems in 1991 from Marburg University, Germany. He was a research associate with ”Istituto di Spettroscopia Molecolare”, CNR, Bologna, Italy in 1996. He obtained his Habilitation (venia legend) in physical chemistry in 1997 on ultrafast laser spectroscopy. In 1999, he was appointed to a group-leader position at the Max-Plank Institute. He joined the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory (ZRL) in 2001. His current research interests are optoelectronic properties of organic/inorganic materials, optical properties of confined systems, nano-photonics and more recently polariton condensates for analogue quantum simulation. R.F. Mahrt has (co)-supervised 13 PhD, 5 Master, 9 PostDoc and 4 internship students. He (co)-authored more than 135 publications in peer-reviewed journals with >9400 citations and has an h-factor of 48.

Scientist in charge

A Fellow of the Royal Society, Henry Snaith is a professor at the University of Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory, where he leads a research group in organic, hybrid and perovskite optoelectronic devices. Supervised by Professor Sir Richard Friend, Henry gained his PhD at the University of Cambridge for research into organic photovoltaics. He then spent two years at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne as a post-doc, researching solid-state, “hybrid” solar cells. He took up his faculty position in Oxford in 2007, where he has conceptualised and pioneered highly efficient photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices based on metal-halide perovskites. In 2010, Henry founded Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd, which is now successfully commercialising perovskite solar technology and where he is Chief Scientific Officer. He co-founded Helio Display Materials Ltd., in 2016. Henry has won numerous accolades and awards for his research and discoveries in the field of metal halide perovskite optoelectronics. In addition to being listed as Clarivate Citation Laureate, he has the Patterson Medal from the Institute of Physics, has been listed in Nature’s Ten People Who Mattered, gained the Materials Research Society’s Outstanding Young Investigator Award and the EU-40 Materials Prize from the European Research Society. In 2015, he earned second place as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, in October 2017, was awarded the Institute of Physics James Joule Medal and Prize for the discovery and development of organic-inorganic metal-halide perovskite solar cells, and in 2018, he received the inaugural UK Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists.