Cheng Zhu was awarded the 2023-2024 Kavli Thesis Prize. Nominations were reviewed based on the quality of the work, publication status, strength of supporting letters, and relevance of the thesis to the Kavli ENSI mission. The award provides a $2,000 stipend.
Cheng Zhu graduated from UC Berkeley with his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Peidong Yang group in May 2024. His doctoral research focused on the supramolecular assembly of halide perovskite building blocks for next-generation optoelectronic materials. Before attending UC Berkeley, Cheng received his B.E. in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University. Currently, he works as a Product Engineer at Lam Research.
A short summary of Zhu's thesis is below:
Supramolecular Assembly of Halide Perovskite Building Blocks
Cheng's thesis presents an innovative supramolecular assembly strategy for designing metal halide perovskites by manipulating metal-halide complexes. The first section highlights the construction of charge-neutral (crown ether@A)2MX6 motifs, formed from crown ethers and double perovskite A2MX6, which assemble into hexagonal single crystals. In the second part, Cheng demonstrates near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) blue emission from the supramolecular assembly of [HfBr6]2- octahedral centers, a less explored configuration. Notably, (18C6@K)2HfBr6 solid powders exhibit a PLQY of 96.22%. Additionally, efficient green emission (82.69% PLQY) is achieved due to the high tunability of the dumbbell structural unit. The solution-processable nature of these materials enables their use in thin film and 3D printing applications. Cheng's research further expands the supramolecular approach to the one-dimensional (1D) molecular wire regium, with potential applications in miniaturized molecular optoelectronic devices. This work paves the way for significant advancements in both supramolecular assembly and nanomaterials research.