Antonios Alvertis

Graduate Student

Home Faculty Advisor: Dr. Akshay Rao, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

Host Faculty Advisor: Professor Jeffrey Neaton, Department of Physics, UC Berkeley

Antonios completed his BSc in Physics in 2014 at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and MSc in Organic and Molecular Electronics at the Technische Universität Dresden.  He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Rao group researching light emission and charge generation in organic solar cells and LEDs from a theoretical perspective.

The project “Phonon effects in solid state singlet fission” will investigate the effect that vibrations in solid-state structures of organics semiconductors have on single exciton fission, which is a process that can be utilized in solar cells to increase device efficiency.  The research will aim to provide an accurate description of the electronic structure of materials suitable for singlet fission and then calculate the effect of vibrations on their properties. The final phase of the work will be to model the real-time dynamics of singlet fission in a solid with the insight used to inform how to improve the performance of solar cells.