WISE congratulates Feng Gao for receiving this year’s Göran Gustafsson Prize

The nomination reads as follows: “For contributions to the fundamental understanding and development of new optoelectronic devices based on organic semiconductors and metal halide perovskites.”

Five Göran Gustafsson Prize laureates are awarded 7.5 million kronor each, 300,000 for a personal prize, and 7.2 million for research funding over a period of three years. These are highly sought-after prizes that over the years have been awarded to researchers who in recent years have also been honored with Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Anne L’Huillier.

Feng Gao’s research focuses on new organic semiconductors and metal halide perovskites that can be used in both solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LED lighting). Solar cells made from such semiconductor materials are more environmentally friendly and offer many other advantages compared to the more traditional inorganic panels, which are often made from silicon material.

– This includes, among other things, low manufacturing energy, light weight, and the fact that the solar cells can be made flexible and semi-transparent. You can place them on windows or use them to cover your electric car. They can also be made in various colors, which could make them better suited to urban environments, for example, says Feng Gao.

– We know that the important thing is to make organic solar cell materials just as good at generating photons as organic LED materials, but we don’t yet know how to achieve that. Now, we can use the prize money from the Göran Gustafsson Prize—which I feel truly honored to receive—to try to figure that out, he says.