Vincent Artero was born in 1973. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm; D/S 93) and of the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6). He received the Ph.D. degree in 2000 under the supervision of Prof. A. Proust. His doctoral work dealt with organometallic derivatives of polyoxometalates. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Aachen (Aix la Chapelle) with Prof. U. Kölle, he joined in 2001 the group of Prof. M. Fontecave in Grenoble with a junior scientist position in the Life  Science Division of CEA. Since 2016, he is Research Director at CEA and leads the SolHyCat group. His current research interests are in bio-inspired chemistry including catalysis related to hydrogen energy and artificial photosynthesis.

Vincent Artero received the "Grand Prix Mergier-Bourdeix de l'Académie des Sciences" in 2011 and has been  granted with a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC, photocatH2ode project 2012-2017). He's a member of the Young academy of Europe (YAE). He currently acts as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ARCANE Excellence Laboratory Network  (LABEX) for bio-driven chemistry in Grenoble and as co-head of the French network (CNRS-Groupement de recherche) on Solar Fuels. Since 2016, Vincent Artero is associate editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal "Sustainable Energy and Fuels". From January 2018 onward, he actsas associate editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry  flagship journal "Chemical Science"

Associate Professor, Chemistry Department, University of Colorado, Boulder

Adjunct Professor, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Professor Erwin Reisner received his education and professional training at the University of Vienna (PhD in 2005), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (postdoc from 2005-2007) and the University of Oxford (postdoc from 2008-2009). He joined the University of Cambridge as a University Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry in 2010, became a Fellow of St. John’s College in 2011, was appointed to Reader in 2015 and to his current position of Professor of Energy and Sustainability in 2017. He started his independent research programme on artificial photosynthesis (solar fuels) with the support of an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship (2009-2015), which also received substantial early support by the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry (2012-2019). In 2016, he received a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant to develop the field of semi-artificial photosynthesis (biohybrid systems for solar fuel synthesis) and has recently been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant (now funded by the UKRI underwrite scheme) on semi-biological domino catalysis for solar chemical production. He is the academic lead (PI) of the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas; since 2019), where his team develops solar-powered valorisation technologies for the conversion of solid waste streams (biomass and plastics) to fuels and chemicals. He has acted as the academic lead of the UK Solar Fuels Network, which coordinates the national activities in artificial photosynthesis (2017-2021) and is currently a co-director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Integrated Functional Nano (nanoCDT) in Cambridge as well as a member of the European research consortia ‘Sofia’ and ‘solar2chem'.

Since Aug. 2014:

Professor for “Inorganic Functional Materials” and head of the NANOMATERIAL group at the IAAC of the Ludwigs-Universität-Freiburg

2009 – 2014:

Group Leader within the framework of UniCat (DFG Exzellenz Cluster), Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Chemie

Research on "Nanostructured electrodes for (bio)-electrocatalysis“

2008 – 2009:

Post-Doc at the MPIKG, Department of Biomaterials, Golm, Germany

2005 – 2008:

Dissertation at the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPIKG), Golm, Germany

“Synthesis of nanostructured metal nitrides through reactive hard-templating“

2000 – 2005:

Education in chemistry, Paris, France

Dr. Roland Marschall obtained his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Leibniz University Hannover in 2008, working on mesoporous materials for fuel cell applications. After a one year postdoctoral research at the University of Queensland in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials, he joined in 2010 the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC as project leader. In 2011, he joined the Industrial Chemistry Laboratory at Ruhr-University Bochum as young researcher. From 07/2013 to 08/2018, he was Emmy-Noether Young Investigator at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. Since 08/2018, he is Full Professor at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His current research interests are heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially photocatalytic water splitting and nitrogen reduction using semiconductor mixed oxides, and synthesis of oxidic mesostructured materials for energy applications.

Matthias May studied physics in Stuttgart, Grenoble, and Berlin, with a focus on condensed matter and computational physics. In his diploma thesis (2010), he investigated charge-density wave phase transitions using photoelectron spectroscopy. For his PhD studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin on III-V semiconductors for solar water splitting, he won a scholarship of Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. He received his PhD end of 2014 and worked in his first postdoctoral position on high-efficiency water splitting. From 2016 to 2018, he was postdoctoral fellow at the Chemistry Department of the University of Cambridge, funded by the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, modelling optical properties of solid-liquid interfaces. His main scientific interests lie in the area of highly correlated electron systems and semiconductor-interfaces, both from an experimental and modelling perspective.

Prof. Christina Scheu has a diploma degree in physics and did her doctorate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart (Germany) in the field of material science. She spent two years as a Minerva Fellow at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology – in Haifa, Israel. 2008 she was appointed as a full professor at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University (Munich, Germany). Since April 2014 she holds a joint position as a full professor at the RWTH Aachen, and as an independent group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH (MPIE) in Düsseldorf Germany. Her expertise is the structural and chemical analysis of functional materials with ex-situ and in-situ transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy and correlation to optical, electronic and electrochemical properties. The investigated materials range from (photo)catalyst for hydrogen production to electrodes and membranes for polymer based fuel cells.

Amirav is an expert in the use of hybrid nanostructures for renewable energy generation, in particular photocatalytic solar-to-fuel conversion. She has demonstrated success in designing sophisticated heterostructures for the water reduction half reaction. She is particularly interested in photocatalysis on the nano scale and related photophysical and photochemical phenomena. The laboratory’s cutting-edge synthetic effort is combined with development of nontraditional techniques for mechanistic study of charge transfer pathways, and fundamental research on reaction mechanism.

Professor Uri Banin is the incumbent of the Larisch Memorial Chair at the Institute of Chemistry and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU). Dr. Banin was the founding director of the Harvey M. Kreuger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2001-2010) and led the program of the Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative at HU (2007-2010). He served on the University’s Executive Committee and on its board of managers and was a member of the board of Yissum. He served on the scientific advisory board of Nanosys. In 2009 Banin was the scientific founder of Qlight Nanotech, a start-up company based on his inventions, developing the use of nanocrystals in display and lighting applications. Since 2013, Banin is an Associate Editor of the journal Nano Letters. His distinctions include the Rothschild and Fulbright postdoctoral fellowships (1994-1995), the Alon fellowship for young faculty (1997-2000), the Yoram Ben-Porat prize (2000), the Israel Chemical Society young scientist award (2001), the Michael Bruno Memorial Award (2007-2010), and the Tenne Family prize for nanoscale science (2012). He received two European Research Council (ERC) advanced investigator grant, project DCENSY (2010-2015), and project CoupledNC (2017-2022). Banin’s research focuses on nanoscience and nanotechnology of nanocrystals and he authored over 180 scientific publications in this field that have been extensively cited.

Majed Chergui is Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics from Chelsea College (University of London), then his Master’s degree and in 1981, his Ph.D. in Molecular Physics from the Université Paris-Sud (Orsay). Thereafter, he spent six years at the Free University of Berlin (Germany), before moving to become in 1993 full professor of Physics at the Université de Lausanne, then to the EPFL in 2003.

He is best known for developing new ultrafast spectroscopic techniques and methods, which he applied to some of the most important problems in molecular spectroscopy and dynamics. In particular, he pioneered ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy and demonstrated its power for observing chemical transformations in molecules, solutions and nanoparticles, with femtosecond temporal and sub-Ångstrom spatial resolution. This work opened a new field of research which has influenced many international groups, especially at X-ray Free electron laser centers. Parallel to these achievements, he developed new ultrafast spectroscopic tools in the deep-ultraviolet (deep-UV), and in particular, he pioneered 2-dimensional deep-UV spectroscopy, with which he addressed electron transfer in proteins and charge carrier dynamics in transition metal oxide nanoparticles and solids.

With these various tools, he solved several fundamental questions regarding photoinduced phenomena in coordination chemistry complexes, in protein dynamics and in semiconductors, such as metal oxides. Among some of the highlights of his work are the description of the spin dynamics in metal complexes, the identification of solvation changes around photoexcited solutes, the unravelling of electron transfer processes concurrent with FRET in biological systems.

Chergui is the founding editor-in-chief of “Structural Dynamics” (AIP Publishing). He was awarded the Kuwait Prize for Physics (2009), the Humboldt Research Award (2010), the 2015 Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy & Dynamics of the American Physical Society and the 2015 Edward Stern Award of the International X-ray Absorption Society.

Enrique Cánovas graduated on Applied Physics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2002). After that, he realized a two-years Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad de Valladolid working on the spectroscopic characterization of native and operation-induced defects in high power laser diodes. From 2004 to 2006 he made a second Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Institute of Solar Energy, IES); training focus was on the fabrication, characterization and optimization of solid state solar cells. In 2006 he joined the group of Prof. Martí  and Prof. Luque at IES, where he completed PhD studies on the spectroscopic characterization of novel nanostructures aiming ultra-high-efficiency solar cells. His PhD studies included two placements (covering 9 months in total) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA - with Prof. W. Walukiewicz) and Glasgow University (Scotland - with Prof. Colin Stanley). Between 2010 and 2012 he worked as a postdoc at FOM Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam - The Netherlands, Prof. M. Bonn) on the characterization of carrier dynamics in sensitized solar cell architectures. Between 2012 to 2018 he lead the Nanostructured Photovoltaics Group at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany). Since April 2018, Enrique Canovas works at IMDEA Nanoscience where he was appointed Assistant Research Proffesor (tenure-track).  His research interests cover all aspects of photovoltaics, nanotechnology and charge carrier dynamics.

Victor I. Klimov is a Fellow of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Director of the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics of the U.S. Department of Energy. He received his M.S. (1978), Ph.D. (1981), and D.Sc. (1993) degrees from Moscow State University. He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, and a recipient of the Humboldt Research Award. His research interests include optical spectroscopy of semiconductor and metal nanostructures, carrier relaxation processes, strongly confined multiexcitons, energy and charge transfer, and fundamental aspects of photovoltaics.

Christian Klinke studied physics at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) where he also obtained his diploma degree in the group of Thomas Schimmel. In March 2000 he joined the group of Klaus Kern at the Institute of Experimental Physics of the EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland). Then from 2003 on he worked as Post-Doc at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, USA) in the group of Phaedon Avouris. In 2006 then he became member of the Horst Weller group at the Universitiy of Hamburg (Germany). In 2007 he started as assistant professor at the University of Hamburg. In 2009 he received the German Nanotech Prize (Nanowissenschaftspreis, AGeNT-D/BMBF). His research was supported by an ERC Starting Grant and a Heisenberg fellowship of the German Funding Agency DFG. Since 2017 he is an associate professor at the Swansea University and since 2019 full professor at the University of Rostock.

Sanford Ruhman is a full professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. His work concentrates on applications of femtosecond spectroscopy in condensed phases. As a pioneer in the field of femtosecond photochemistry his group was the first to report conservation of coherence from reactants to dissociation products in solutions, and to utilize impulsive Raman probing of photoproducts. His current interests include fundamental ultrafast excitonics in nanocrystals and photovoltaic materials, ultrafast photobiology, and applications of impulsive vibrational spectroscopy to probe light induced dynamics in liquids and solids. Over the years he has served as the Director of the Farkas Minerva center for light induced processes at the Hebrew University, and as the head of the Institute of Chemistry there.

Since 2010, Richard D. Schaller has held a joint appointment as both a research scientist in the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Lab and as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. Schaller’s research focuses on spectroscopy and physical chemistry of semiconductor nanomaterials From 2002 to 2010, Schaller was a Reines Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow and then a permanent technical staff member at Los Alamos National Lab with Dr. Victor Klimov. Schaller obtained his PhD in physical chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2002 with Prof. Richard Saykally in nonlinear optics and near-field optics. In 2012, he was selected by the National Academy of Sciences as a Kavli Fellow participant.

Vanmaekelbergh's research started in the field of semiconductor electrochemistry in the 1980s; this later evolved into the electrochemical fabrication of macroporous semiconductors as the strongest light scatterers for visible light, and the study of electron transport in disordered (particulate) semiconductors. In the last decade, Vanmaekelbergh's interest shifted to the field of nanoscience: the synthesis of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots and self-assembled quantum-dot solids, the study of their opto-electronic properties with optical spectroscopy and UHV cryogenic Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy, and electron transport in electrochemically-gated quantum-dot solids. Scanning tunnelling spectroscopy is also used to study the electronic states in graphene quantum dots. More recently, the focus of the research has shifted to 2-D nano structured semiconductors, e.g. honeycomb semiconductors with Dirac-type electronic bands.

Emily Weiss is an Associate Professor and the Irving M. Klotz Research Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwesern University. Emily earned her PhD from Northwestern in 2005, advised by Mark Ratner and Michael Wasielewski. Her graduate work focused on magnetic superexchange interactions of radical ion pairs created by electron transfer within organic donor-acceptor systems. Emily did postdoctoral research at Harvard under George M. Whitesides from 2005-2008 as a Petroleum Research Fund Postdoctoral Energy Fellow, and started her independent career at Northwestern in Fall 2008. Emily’s group studies electronic processes at organic-inorganic interfaces within colloidal and semiconductor and metal nanoparticles. The objectives of this research are to understand the mechanisms of conversion of energy from one class to another (light, heat, chemical potential, electrical potential) at interfaces, to understand the behavior of quantum confined systems far from equilibrium, and to design and synthesize nanostructures that are new combinations of organic and inorganic components.

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).

Wolfgang Langbein (ResearcherID B-1271-2010) was born in Würzburg, Germany, in 1968. He received his Diplom in physics from the University of Kaiserslautern in 1992, and his PhD degree in physics from the University of Karlsruhe in 1995. From 1995 to 1998, he was assistant research professor at the Mikroelektronik Centret, Denmark. From 1998 to 2004, he was with the University of Dortmund, where received his Habilitation in 2003. In 2004 he was appointed senior lecturer in the School of Physics, Cardiff University, promoted to Reader in 2006 and to Personal Chair in 2007. His current research interests are (i) characterization and ultrafast spectroscopy of semiconductor nanostructures, microcavities, and quantum-dot optical amplifiers. (ii) application of optical spectroscopy and imaging to life-science, including the techniques of coherent Raman scattering microscopy and label-free optical biosensors using microcavities or plasmonics.

Emmanuel Lhuillier has been undergraduate student at ESPCI in Paris and then followed a master in condensed matter physics from university Pierre and Marie Curie. He was then PhD student under the mentorship of Emmanuel Rosencher at Onera in the optics department, where he work on transport in quantum well heterostructure. As post doc he moved to the group of Philippe Guyot-Sionnest in the university of Chicago, and start working on infrared nanocrystal. Then he moved back to ESPCI for a second post in the group of Benoit Dubertret working on optoelectronic properties of colloidal nanoplatelets. Since 2015 he is a CNRS researcher at Institute for nanoscience of Paris at Sorbinne université. His research activities are focused on optoelectronic properties of confined Nanomaterial with a special interest on infrared system. He receive in 2017 an ERC starting grant to investigate infrared colloidal materials.

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.

Born in the Netherlands,David Cahen studied chemistry & physics at the Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (HUJ), Materials Research and Phys. Chem. at Northwestern Univ, and biophysics of photosynthesis (postdoc) at HUJ and the Weizmann Institute of Science, WIS. After joining the WIS faculty he focused on alternative sustainable energy resources, in particular various types of solar cells. In parallel he researches hybrid molecular/non-molecular systems, focusing on understanding and controlling electronic transport across (bio)molecules. He is a fellow of the AVS and the MRS. He heads WIS' Alternative, sustainable energy research initiative.

Enrique Cánovas graduated on Applied Physics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2002). After that, he realized a two-years Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad de Valladolid working on the spectroscopic characterization of native and operation-induced defects in high power laser diodes. From 2004 to 2006 he made a second Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Institute of Solar Energy, IES); training focus was on the fabrication, characterization and optimization of solid state solar cells. In 2006 he joined the group of Prof. Martí  and Prof. Luque at IES, where he completed PhD studies on the spectroscopic characterization of novel nanostructures aiming ultra-high-efficiency solar cells. His PhD studies included two placements (covering 9 months in total) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA - with Prof. W. Walukiewicz) and Glasgow University (Scotland - with Prof. Colin Stanley). Between 2010 and 2012 he worked as a postdoc at FOM Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam - The Netherlands, Prof. M. Bonn) on the characterization of carrier dynamics in sensitized solar cell architectures. Between 2012 to 2018 he lead the Nanostructured Photovoltaics Group at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany). Since April 2018, Enrique Canovas works at IMDEA Nanoscience where he was appointed Assistant Research Proffesor (tenure-track).  His research interests cover all aspects of photovoltaics, nanotechnology and charge carrier dynamics.

Laura Herz is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2002 and was a Research Fellow at St John's College Cambridge from 2001 - 2003 after which she moved to Oxford. Her research interests lie in the area of organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors including aspects such as self-assembly, nano-scale effects, energy-transfer and light-harvesting for solar energy conversion.

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.

Vanessa Wood is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich, where she heads the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics. Before joining ETH in 2011, she was a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Professor Yet-Ming Chiang and Professor Craig Carter in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, performing research on novel lithium-ion battery systems. She received her MSc and PhD from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Her graduate work was done in the group of Professor Vladimir Bulović and focused on the development of optoelectronic devices containing colloidally synthesized quantum dots.

Alexander W. Achtstein studied Physics at University of Augsburg and Ludwigs Maximilians University Munich (LMU). He recieved a PhD from Technical University of Berlin in 2013. After a postdoc period at TU Delft he returned to TU Berlin. His research concentrates on the linear and nonlinear optical as well as electronic properties of 2D semiconductors, with a focus on II-VI nanosheets and transition metal dichalcogenides.

Professor William E. Buhro earned an A.B. in Chemistry in 1980 at Hope College (Holland, Michigan) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1985 at the University of California, Los Angeles. His dissertation research focused on organometallic chemistry. He was then awarded the first Chester Davis Research Fellowship at Indiana University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow from 1985-1987. In 1987 he joined the Department of Chemistry at Washington University as an assistant professor. Buhro twice received the Washington University Council of Arts and Sciences Faculty Award for Teaching (1990, 1996), the Emerson Electric Co. Excellence in Teaching Award (1996), and was named a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator (1991-1996). In 2010 Buhro received the St. Louis Award from the ACS St. Louis Section, and was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society. He is currently the George E. Pake Professor in Arts & Sciences, Chair of the Department of Chemistry, and an editor of the ACS journal Chemistry of Materials. His research interests in nanoscience include the synthesis of nanocrystalline materials, especially pseudo-1D and 2D colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, the spectroscopic properties of quantum nanostructures, and mechanisms of nanocrystal growth.

Hilmi Volkan Demir received his B.S. degree from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1998, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. As Singapore’s NRF Fellow, he is currently a Professor of electrical engineering, physics and materials with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where he is also the Director of LUMINOUS! Center of Excellence for Semiconductor Lighting and Displays. Concurrently, he holds appointment at Bilkent University and UNAM (his alma mater). His current research interests include nanocrystal optoelectronics, semiconductor nanophotonics and lighting. His scientific and entrepreneurship activities resulted in important international and national awards, including the NRF Investigatorship Award, the Nanyang Award for Research Excellence and the European Science Foundation EURYI Award. Dr. Demir is an elected Associate Member of the Turkish National Academy of Sciences (TUBA) and a Fellow of OSA.

Benoit Mahler is a CNRS researcher at the ILM (Light and Matter Institute) in Lyon (France). His research interests include the colloidal synthesis of semiconductor nanostructures and heterostructures, the growth of two-dimensional materials and their applications for light harvesting applications.

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.

David J. Norris received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Chicago (1990) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1995), respectively. After an NSF postdoctoral fellowship with W. E. Moerner at the University of California, San Diego, he led a small independent research group at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton (1997). He then became an Associate Professor (2001–2006) and Professor (2006–2010) of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, where he also served as Director of Graduate Studies in Chemical Engineering (2004–2010). In 2010, he moved to ETH Zurich where he is currently Professor of Materials Engineering. From 2016 to 2019 he served as the Head of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. He has received the Credit Suisse Award for Best Teacher at ETH, twice the Golden Owl Award for Best Teacher in his department, the Max Rössler Research Prize, an ERC Advanced Grant, and the ACS Nano Lectureship Award. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an editorial board member for ACS Photonics and Nano Letters. His research focuses on how materials can be engineered to create new and useful optical properties.

Prof. Anna Rodina is Senior Scientific Researcher in the laboratory of Optics of Semiconductors at Ioffe Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (St.-Petersburg, Russia). She received her Ph.D. (1993) and Habilitation (2016) degrees in Physics from Ioffe Institute and became the Professor of Russian Academy of Sciences in 2018. The expertise of Prof. Rodina is in the theory of semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures. The current research interests are focused on the magneto-optical properties and spin-dependent phenomena in colloidal nanocrystals.  

Since 2010, Richard D. Schaller has held a joint appointment as both a research scientist in the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Lab and as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. Schaller’s research focuses on spectroscopy and physical chemistry of semiconductor nanomaterials From 2002 to 2010, Schaller was a Reines Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow and then a permanent technical staff member at Los Alamos National Lab with Dr. Victor Klimov. Schaller obtained his PhD in physical chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2002 with Prof. Richard Saykally in nonlinear optics and near-field optics. In 2012, he was selected by the National Academy of Sciences as a Kavli Fellow participant.

Laurens Siebbeles (1963) is leader of the Opto-Electronic Materials Section and deputy head of the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. His research involves studies of the motion of electrons in novel nanostructured materials that have potential applications in e.g. solar cells, light-emitting diodes and nanoelectronics. Materials of interest include organic nanostructured materials, semiconductor quantum dots, nanorods and two-dimensional materials. Studies on charge and exciton dynamics are carried out using ultrafast time-resolved laser techniques and high-energy electron pulses in combination with quantum theoretical modeling.

Vanmaekelbergh's research started in the field of semiconductor electrochemistry in the 1980s; this later evolved into the electrochemical fabrication of macroporous semiconductors as the strongest light scatterers for visible light, and the study of electron transport in disordered (particulate) semiconductors. In the last decade, Vanmaekelbergh's interest shifted to the field of nanoscience: the synthesis of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots and self-assembled quantum-dot solids, the study of their opto-electronic properties with optical spectroscopy and UHV cryogenic Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy, and electron transport in electrochemically-gated quantum-dot solids. Scanning tunnelling spectroscopy is also used to study the electronic states in graphene quantum dots. More recently, the focus of the research has shifted to 2-D nano structured semiconductors, e.g. honeycomb semiconductors with Dirac-type electronic bands.

Celso de Mello Donega is an Associate Professor in the Chemistry Department of the Faculty of Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His expertise is in the field of synthesis and optical spectroscopy of luminescent materials. His research is focused on the chemistry and optoelectronic properties of nanomaterials, with particular emphasis on colloidal nanocrystals and heteronanocrystals.

Born in the Netherlands,David Cahen studied chemistry & physics at the Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (HUJ), Materials Research and Phys. Chem. at Northwestern Univ, and biophysics of photosynthesis (postdoc) at HUJ and the Weizmann Institute of Science, WIS. After joining the WIS faculty he focused on alternative sustainable energy resources, in particular various types of solar cells. In parallel he researches hybrid molecular/non-molecular systems, focusing on understanding and controlling electronic transport across (bio)molecules. He is a fellow of the AVS and the MRS. He heads WIS' Alternative, sustainable energy research initiative.

Filippo De Angelis is senior research scientist and a deputy director at the CNR Institute of Molecular Sciences and Technology, in Perugia, Italy. He is the founder and leader of the Computational Laboratory for Hybrid/Organic Photovoltaics. He earned a BS in Chemistry in 1996 and a PhD in Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry in 1999, both from the University of Perugia. He is an expert in the development and application of quantum mechanical methods to the study of hybrid/organic photovoltaics and materials for energy applications. He is Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. He has published >270 papers with > 17000 citations.

Dr. Guichuan Xing received his bachelor Degree from Fudan University (China) in 2003 and PhD in physics from National University of Singapore (Singapore) in 2011. From 2009 to 2016, he worked as a research fellow in Prof. Tze Chien Sum group at Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Xing joined the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering (IAPME), University of Macau in 2016 as an assistant Professor. His research interest includes developing and applying ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopic techniques to probing, understanding and controlling the fundamental charge and energy carrier generation, transport and relaxation processes in novel optoelectronic systems for energy conversion/storage and light emission applications.

Robert Lovrincic obtained his PhD in physics from Heidelberg University in 2009. In 2010 he joined the group of Prof. David Cahen at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) as a Minerva and Marie-Curie fellow. He has been a group leader at the Innovationlab in Heidelberg since 2013. His main expertise is the vibrational and structural characterization of electronic materials.

Selina Olthof studied physics at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and completed her master's thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. In 2010, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Dresden under Karl Leo, followed by a two-year postdoctoral stay at Princeton University with Antoine Kahn. From 2012 to 2024, she led the Surface Science Research Group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cologne. Recently, she was appointed Full Professor at the University of Wuppertal, where she established the Chair of Material and Surface Analysis. Her research focuses on advancing the understanding of the electronic structure of novel semiconducting materials, particularly organic semiconductors and hybrid perovskites.

Sanford Ruhman is a full professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. His work concentrates on applications of femtosecond spectroscopy in condensed phases. As a pioneer in the field of femtosecond photochemistry his group was the first to report conservation of coherence from reactants to dissociation products in solutions, and to utilize impulsive Raman probing of photoproducts. His current interests include fundamental ultrafast excitonics in nanocrystals and photovoltaic materials, ultrafast photobiology, and applications of impulsive vibrational spectroscopy to probe light induced dynamics in liquids and solids. Over the years he has served as the Director of the Farkas Minerva center for light induced processes at the Hebrew University, and as the head of the Institute of Chemistry there.

Koichi Yamashita obtained his PhD from Kyoto University in 1982 supervised by Prof. Kenichi Fukui. He was postdoctoral fellow with Prof. William H. Miller at the University of California, Berkeley for 1982-84. He moved to Okazaki in 1984 to join the group of Prof. Keiji Morokuma as Research Associate at Division of Theoretical Study of Institute of Molecular Science. In 1991 he became Senior Researcher at Institute of Fundamental Chemistry directed by Prof. Kenichi Fukui. In 1994 he moved to Tokyo to join the group of Prof. Kimihiko Hirao as Associate Professor in Department of Applied Chemistry at University of Tokyo. He has been Full Professor at the University of Tokyo since 1997.

Juan A. Anta is Full Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain. He obtained a BA in Chemistry in the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (Spain) and carried out his PhD research at the Physical Chemistry Institut of the National Research Council of Spain. His research focuses on fundamental studies of energy photoconversion processes, especially on dye and perovskite solar cells, using numerical simulation and modelling tools, as well as advanced optoelectronic characterization techniques such as impedance spectroscopy and other small perturbation techniques.

Claudine Katan (born Hoerner) received her Ph.D. in physics (nonlinear optics) from the University of Strasbourg (ULP), France in 1992. She subsequently served as a lecturer in physics at the University of Rennes (UR1), France, before being appointed as a CNRS Research Investigator in the Physics Department at Rennes in 1993. Until 2003, her research interests concerned the properties of molecular charge-transfer crystals and the topology of electron densities mainly through approaches based on density functional theory (e.g. the CP-PAW code by P. E. Blöchl, IBM-Zurich). She then joined the Chemistry Department at Rennes and turned her research interests toward the structural, electronic and linear/nonlinear optical properties of molecular and supramolecular chromophores using various theoretical approaches—from modeling to state-of-the-art electronic structure calculations (e.g. CEO methodology by S. Tretiak, LANL) . Since the end of 2010, her research has also been devoted to 3D and 2D crystalline materials of the family of halide perovskites based on solid-state physics concepts. Overall, her theoretical work is closely related to the experimental research developed in-house and through international collaboratorations.

Prof. Dr. Beat Ruhstaller is founder of Fluxim and lecturer at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW in Winterthur, Switzerland. After a Diploma in Physics from ETH Zürich he obtained his PhD in Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA), in 2000. He was a postdoc at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in the display technology group before joining ZHAW, where he headed the Institute of Computational Physics from 2007 to 2010. In 2006 he founded Fluxim which he has managed as CEO since 2011. Fluxim has successfully brought R&D tool innovations from the lab to the OLED and solar cell market. He has been performing research on both optical, electronic and thermal processes in light-emitting and light-harvesting (organic) semiconductor devices.

Guy Brammertz graduated in 1999 from the University of Liège (Belgium) in Applied Physics. In 2003 he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Twente (The Netherlands) defending a thesis about his work on superconducting Josephson junction photon detectors carried out for the European Space Agency. He then joined imec in 2004, where he first was involved in the LogicDram program aiming at the fabrication of Ge and III-V 35 nm gate length MOS transistors for CMOS applications. His work focused on electrical and optical characterization as well as passivation of electrical defects at Ge and III-V/oxide interfaces. In 2011 he joined the imec photovoltaic program, where he is now working on the fabrication and characterization of thin film solar cells based on Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGS), Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTS) and Cu2ZnGe(S,Se)4 (CZGS) absorbers.

Seigo Ito received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (Japan), with a thesis that was the first to discuss Graetzel-type dye-sensitized solar cells in Japan. He worked in the Laboratory of Professor Shozo Yanagida (Osaka University, Japan) for two years, and in the Laboratory of Professor Michael Graetzel, at the Swiss federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne as a postdoctoral scientist for over three years, where his efforts focused on the progress of high-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells. He is currently professor at University of Hyogo, making new printable cost-effective solar cells.

Benjamin Grévin is a graduate of the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) and of the former University Joseph Fourier Grenoble I (University Grenoble Alpes, UGA). He received the Ph.D. degree in 1998 under the supervision of Dr. Y. Berthier. His doctoral work dealt with NMR investigations of high Tc superconductors and related cuprates. After a postdoctoral stay at the Condensed Matter Research Department of Geneva University in the group of Prof. Ø. Fisher, he joined in 2000 the UMR5819 joint research center (CEA-CNRS-UGA). He was awarded the bronze medal of CNRS in 2005 and obtained the accreditation to direct research (Habilitation à diriger les recherches, HdR) in 2006. His current research projects as CNRS Research Director deal with the development of advanced scanning probe microscopy techniques (nc-AFM/KPFM, time-resolved surface photo-voltage imaging), for local investigations of the opto-electronic properties of model organic (donor-acceptor BHJ and molecular self-assemblies), hybrid perovskites and 2D TMDC materials.

Professor Dr. Renate Hiesgen, born on 18.08.1958 in Germany, is Professor for Experimental Physics at the University of Applied Sciences, Department of Basic Science in Esslingen, Germany.

She studied Physics at the University of Münster and received her PhD with electron microscopy studies under the supervision of Prof. L. Reimer in 1989.

Her work on in-situ characterization of interfaces by scanning tunneling microscopy started at the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hannover in 1998. After continued research with scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy at the Research Center Jülich GmbH and the Technical University Munich, she became Professor for Experimental Physics at the University of Applied Sciences Esslingen in 2000. Main topics of her group are characterization of materials and interfaces for energy applications. In addition to battery materials and semiconductors for solar energy conversion, a focus of her work in recent years has been the investigation of ionomers and electrodes for applications in fuel cells and electrolysis with material-sensitive and conductive studies. She has authored or coauthored more than 80 publications and was recipient of the f-cell award 2007 in the category research.

Philippe Leclère received a PhD in Physics from the University of Liège (Belgium) in 1994. He joined the group of Jean-Luc Brédas at the University of Mons in 1995 as a research fellow. From 2000 to 2004, he worked as research associate and served as research coordinator at the Materia Nova Research Center. During this period, he spent 4 months (in 1999) in the group of Jean-Pierre Aimé at the University of Bordeaux (France) and one year (2003) in the group of E.W. (Bert) Meijer at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands. In October 2004, he became Research Associate of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FRS - FNRS) in the group of Roberto Lazzaroni at the University of Mons. In October 2014, he became Senior Research Associate of the FRS - FNRS. Since 2003, he is still visiting scientist at the Institute of Complex Molecular Systems at TU/e. His research interests mostly deal with the characterization by means of scanning probe microscopy techniques of the morphology and the nanoscale mechanical, electrical properties of organic and hybrid supramolecular (nano)structures, build by self-assembly of functional (macro)molecules. He is (co)author of over 160 chapter books and papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Hirsch Factor : 38

Leite is an Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis. Her group investigates materials for energy harvesting and storage, from their nano-scale structural, electrical, and optical properties to their implementation in devices. Before joining UC Davis, Leite was an associate professor at the University of Maryland, she worked for two years at NIST and was a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science). She received her PhD in physics from Campinas State University in Brazil and the Synchrotron Light Source Laboratory. Leite's work has been recognized on the cover of ~30 scientific journals, by the presentation of >140 invited talks, by the 2016 APS Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS) and the 2014 Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award. Leite’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), etc.

Christian Teichert studied Physics in Halle, Germany; Ph.D. in 1992; 1992/93 Postdoc (Alexander von Humboldt fellowship) Research Center Juelich, Germany; 1993-1996 Postdoc UW Madison, U.S., 1996/97 Postdoc, Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle, Germany; 1997 Assistant Professor, University of Leoben, Austria, Head of Scanning Probe Microscopy Group Leoben; since 2001 Associate Professor, University of Leoben.

2002: Gaede Prize of the German Vacuum Society. 2014: reactivated fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Areas of expertise: Scanning Probe Microscopy based nanostructure research with focus on structure and electrical and mechanical properties of inorganic and organic semiconductors, two-dimensional materials, and cellulose based materials.

Organizer of several International Nanoscience Workshops and Symposia. Currently, he is the elected vice-chair of the Nanometer Structure Division of the International Union of Vacuum Science, Technology and Application (IUVSTA).

Stefan Weber (born 1981) studied Physics at the University of Konstanz. Already as an undergrad student he started to work with an SFM in the group of Prof. Leiderer. For his diploma thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Johannes Boneberg he studied the interaction of gold nanoparticles with pulsed laser light. In 2007, he joined the group of Prof. Butt at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Reaearch (MPI-P), Mainz. During his PhD, he spent six months at Seoul National University, Korea, in the groups of Prof. K. Char and Prof. C. Lee. In 2010 he received a joint doctoral degree from Mainz University and SNU. In 2011 he went to University College Dublin as a Feodor Lynen Fellow (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) to join Prof. Brian Rodriguez and Prof. Suzi Jarvis. In 2012 he became a group leader in the Physics of Interfaces group in the department of Prof. Hans-Jürgen Butt at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), Mainz. From 2015 to 2023 he held a junior professor postition in the Physics department of Mainz University. Sind June 2023, he is a permament group leader at the Institute for Photovoltaics at University Stuttgart, where he heads the Nanoscale Microscopy and Characterization group. In 2024, he won an ERC Consolidator grant for the development of a Photovoltaic Microscope that combines nanoscale electrical imaging with high-resolution optical microscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy

Gunther Wittstock studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig and obtained a PhD in Analytical Chemistry. After stays at the University of Cincinnati (1992-1993) and at the Technical University of Munich, he prepared his habilitation at the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Institute of the University of Leipzig. In 2001 he became full professor of Physical Chemistry at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg where he runs an electrochemistry group. His research interest is focused on localized interfacial charge transfer reaction which he investigates within a larger variety of application. This includes biomimetic interfaces, functional organic thin films on the basis of self-assembled monolayers, patterned organic thin films, organic-inorganic functional materials, nanoparticle assemblies at interfaces, localized electrocatalytic reactions in particular oxygen reduction reaction in different media. Recently, there has been a particular emphasis on molecular reaction in energy conversion systems. He uses scanning electrochemical microscopy which is complemented by surface spectroscopies and other microscopic techniques. Among others, his achievements have been recognized by a grant of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Klaus Jürgen Vetter Award of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE). Currently he is a member of the Executive Council and Treasurer of ISE.