Alexander L. Efros has been a senior researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) since 1999. He was and currently is PI and co-PI on several programs related to nanocrystal quantum dots. He received his PhD (1978) from St.Petersburg Technical University. From 1973 to 1981, he was a Junior Researcher at the Pozitron Corporation, Leningrad, and from 1981 to 1990 a Senior Researcher at the A. F. Ioffe Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, Leningrad. From 1990 to 1992 he had a position of a German Physical Society senior researcher at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich, and for 1992-1993 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA. From 1993 to 1998 he was a Consultant at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC Dr. Efros’s primary expertise area is a theory of electronic, optical and transport properties of low-dimensional semiconductor structures. He has published more than one hundred and sixty articles in refereed journals (more the hundreds of these papers are in the field of quantum dots); papers published have been cited more than 12000 times (the paper related to Dr. Efros’s pionering work on nanocrystals have been cited more than 1000 times). His pioneering contributions to the theory of nanocrystal quantum dots including establishing the basic model used for describing their electronic and optical properties were instrumental for creation a new class of the optical materials. He is continuing his active work in the quantum dot field. Just recently he suggested a theoretical model, which suggest a way to suppress nonradiative Auger processes in confined structures [ NanoLetters 10, 313 (2010)]. This model was used to explain the suppression of blinking observed in soft-confined nanocrystals (Nature 459, 686 (2009)). Dr, Efros is recipient of the 2006 R.W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America (with L. E. Brus and A. Ekimov) for the “discovery of nanocrystal quantum dots and pioneering studies of their electronic and optical properties. For his work on quantum dots, he also received of Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists in 2007 and 2006 Sigma Xi NRL Award for basic research. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2001) and recipient of the Dolores M. Etter Top Navy Scientists and Engineers of the Year Award (2009). Dr. Efros gave more then seventy invited talks at International Conferences and Meetings and more than 200 at Universities and Laboratories throughout the US and Europe. He is co-editor with Prof. D. J. Lockwood and Prof. L. Tsybeskov of a book entitled, “Semiconductor Nanocrystals: from Basic Principles to Device Applications,” Kluwer, New York, 2003; and co-editor with Prof. L. Brus and Prof. T. Itoh for a Special Issue of the Journal of Luminescence on “The Spectroscopy of Isolated and Assembled Semiconductor Nanocrystals,” 1996.

Maksym Kovalenko has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich since July 2011 and Associate professor from January 2017. His group is also partially hosted by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) to support his highly interdisciplinary research program. He completed graduate studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria, 2004-2007, with Prof. Wolfgang Heiss), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago (USA, 2008-2011, with Prof. Dmitri Talapin). His present scientific focus is on the development of new synthesis methods for inorganic nanomaterials, their surface chemistry engineering, and assembly into macroscopically large solids. His ultimate, practical goal is to provide novel inorganic materials for optoelectronics, rechargeable Li-ion batteries, post-Li-battery materials, and catalysis. He is the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant 2018, ERC Starting Grant 2012, Ruzicka Preis 2013 and Werner Prize 2016. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher 2018 (by Clarivate Analytics).

Tae-Woo Lee is an associate professor in Materials Science and Engineering at the Seoul National University, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the KAIST, Korea in 2002. He joined Bell Laboratories, USA as a postdoctoral researcher and worked at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology as (2003-2008). He was an associate professor in Materials Science and Engineering at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea until August 2016. His research focuses on printed flexible electronics based on organic, carbon, and organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials for displays, solar cells, and bio-inspired neuromorphic electronics.

Joseph M. Luther obtained B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2001. At NCSU he began his research career under the direction of Salah Bedair, who was the first to fabricate a tandem junction solar cell. Luther worked on growth and characterization high-efficiency III-V materials including GaN and GaAsN. His interest in photovoltaics sent him to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to pursue graduate work. He obtained a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado while researching effects of defects in bulk semiconductors in NREL�s Measurements and Characterization Division. In 2005, He joined Art Nozik�s group at NREL and studied semiconductor nanocrystals for multiple exciton generation for which he was awarded a Ph.D. in Physics from Colorado School of Mines. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied fundamental synthesis and novel properties of nanomaterials under the direction Paul Alivisatos at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2009, he rejoined NREL as a senior research scientist. His research interests lie in the growth, electronic coupling and optical properties of colloidal nanocrystals and quantum dots.

Bio Professional Preparation M.S. in Chemistry, with Honours, University of Bari, Italy, 1996 Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Bari, Italy, 2001 Research interests Prof. L. Manna is an expert of synthesis and assembly of colloidal nanocrystals. His research interests span the advanced synthesis, structural characterization and assembly of inorganic nanostructures for applications in energy-related areas, in photonics, electronics and biology.

Dr. Thilo Stöferle has been a permanent Research Staff Member at the IBM Research – Zurich Laboratory since August 2007. His current research interests are quantum simulation and quantum fluids, Bose-Einstein condensates with exciton-polaritons, integrated high Q/V cavities, nanophotonic lasers and switches. Another focus is on hybrid nanocomposite quantum materials for strong-light matter interaction and opto-electronic applications.