He studied electrical engineering in Stuttgart and started working on Si solar cells in 2004 under the guidance of Uwe Rau at the Institute for Physical Electronics (ipe) in Stuttgart. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 2006, he continued working with Uwe Rau first in Stuttgart and later in Juelich on simulations and electroluminescence spectroscopy of solar cells. After finishing his PhD in 2009 and 1.5 years of postdoc work in Juelich, Thomas Kirchartz started a three year fellowship at Imperial College London working on recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells with Jenny Nelson. In 2013, he returned to Germany and accepted a position as head of a new activity on hybrid and organic solar cells in Juelich and simultaneously as Professor for Photovoltaics with Nanostructured Materials in the department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the University Duisburg-Essen. Kirchartz has published >100 isi-listed papers, has co-edited one book on characterization of thin-film solar cells whose second edition was published in 2016 and currently has an h-index of 38.

Professor Anna Köhler holds a chair of experimental physics at the University of Bayreuth. She received her PhD in 1996 from the University of Cambridge, UK, where she continued her research funded through Research Fellowships by Peterhouse and by the Royal Society. In 2003 she was appointed professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany, from where she moved in 2007 to the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Her research is concerned with photophysical processes in organic and hybrid semiconductors. She focusses in particular on the processes of energy and charge transfer in singlet and triplet excited states, the exciton dissociation mechanism and intermolecular/interchain interactions.

Dr. Yana Vaynzof is the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany) and a Director at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden. She received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Israel) in 2006 and a M. Sc. In Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (USA) in 2008. In 2011, she received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK). Yana was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK) and an assistant professor at Heidelberg University (Germany) from 2014 to 2019. Yana Vaynzof is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, including the ERC Starting Grant, ERC Consolidator Grant, Gordon Wu Fellowship, Henry Kressel Fellowship, Fulbright-Cottrell Award and the Walter Kalkhof-Rose Memorial Prize. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the winner of the Energy & Environmental Science Lectureship Award. Her research interests lie in the field of emerging photovoltaics, focusing on the study of material and device physics of organic, quantum dot and perovskite solar cells by integrating device fabrication and characterisation with the application and development of advanced spectroscopic methods.

Prof. Aron Walsh holds the Chair in Materials Design at Imperial College London. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin and later worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, University College London, and the University of Bath. His research combines technique development and applications at the interface between solid-state chemistry and physics. He was awarded the EU-40 prize from the Materials Research Society for his work on the theory of solar energy materials, and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. 

Docent Moyses Araujo received his PhD degree, in Condensed Matter Physics, from Uppsala University (UU). Thereafter, he has held a postdoc position at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm with a distinguished scholarship from the Swedish Research Council (VR). As a recognition of his work in Sweden, he has won three research awards, viz. Benzelius prize (from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala), Ångstrom Premium (UU), and Bjurzon’s Premium (the highest award for PhD thesis at UU). In 2011, he has moved for a postdoc in USA, at Yale University, with a prestigious scholarship from the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI). In 2012, he has returned to Sweden as researcher at UU and in 2014 he has started his independent research group in the same institution with support from VR through the Young Researcher Grant. In 2018 he has become Docent in Physics at Uppsala University. From September 2020, he has joint Karlstad University as universitetslektor/Associate Professor in condensed matter theory.

Atsushi Wakamiya received his Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University in 2003. He began his academic carreer at Nagoya University as an assistant professor in 2003. In 2010, he moved to Kyoto University as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 2018. He received several awards: The Chemical Society of Japan Award for Creative Work (2020), Commendation for Science and Technology by MEXT Japan: Award for Science and Technology Research Category (2022), etc. He is a project leader of the Green Innovation Program (NEDO) and JST-Mirai Program. He is a co-founder and a director (as Chief Scientific Officer, CSO) of “EneCoat Technologies, Co. Ltd.”, a startup company for perovskite solar modules. His research interests include physical organic chemistry, elemental chemistry and materials chemistry.

Kai Zhu is currently a senior scientist in the Chemistry and Nanoscience Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He received his PhD degree in physics from Syracuse University in 2003. Before this position, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Basic Science Center at NREL, focusing on fundamental charge carrier conduction and recombination in photoelectrochemical cells, especially dye-sensitized solar cells. Dr. Zhu’s research on dye-sensitized solar cells involves the development of advanced electrode materials/architectures, basic understanding of charge transport and recombination processes in these electrodes, and thin-film solar cell development/characterization/modeling. His recent research has centered on both basic and applied research on perovskite solar cells, including perovskite material development, device fabrication and characterization, and basic understanding of charge carrier dynamics in these cells. In addition to solar conversion applications, his research interests have also included III-Nitride wide-bandgap semiconductors for high-power blue and UV light emitting diodes and ordered nanostructured electrodes for Li-ion batteries and supercapacitors.