Publication date: 17th July 2025
Electrochemical technologies such as batteries, catalysts and fuel cells will play a critical role in the world’s green-energy transition. At the crux of these (and other) electrochemical energy devices lie a combination of electron and ion (charge) transfer processes, impacting everything from durability to efficiency. On mesoscopic timescales (ns to s) we have a fantastic understanding of ionic-electronic transport related phenomena in electrochemical systems. However, when it comes to faster femtosecond/picosecond timescales our insight remains limited. This is a critical gap. Because in this time range lie many of the electron and ion mediated (redox) reactions, liquid phase rearrangements (solvation) and lattice dynamics that ultimately set the performance of the electrochemical materials that we need to push for reaching net-zero.
Using Li-ion batteries as an example, I will discuss how my team and I are seeking to capture and control ultrafast dynamics in electrochemical systems. I will specifically focus on our development of light-shaping (computational imaging) methods and IR/X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) spectroscopies to probe processes such as picosecond ion hops and femtosecond electron-lattice (polaron) interactions in batteries. I will delve into the impact of our results for the refinement of charge transport theories and battery materials discovery, as well as more generally highlighting the power of FELs for tracking processes that have thus-far been beyond spectroscopic probing, such as stochastic charge and structural motion. I will finish by sharing my vision to follow and tame ultrafast, performance defining, steps in other clean-energy systems, especially where the primary excitations are not necessarily driven by light e.g., electrocatalysts. And new quantum imaging/spectroscopy techniques my team and I are working on for characterising energy materials at ultralow photon fluxes, critical for avoiding material damage, and revealing otherwise inaccessible material properties.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.