Speaker: Prof Udo Bach
ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science - Monash University
Department of Chemical Engineering
Clayton, Victoria, Australia
The effects of global warming are calling for a rapid transition from fossil to renewable energy sources. New materials for energy generation and storage are required to enable this transition. In this presentation we will introduce a new research tool which introduces elements of automation and artificial intelligence to the field of materials discovery. The new research platform will be hosted at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication and is part of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. The main purpose of this installation is to accelerate the development of novel printable photovoltaic materials such as lead halide perovskites and their lead-free analogues, it is however also applicable towards the discovery of energy materials more broadly. It entails three integrated robotic sections. The first allows to formulate inks from liquid and solid chemical precursors, the second section allows to produce thin films from these inks via solution processing techniques and the third section hosts a number of characterization tools to determine the optical, electronic and structural properties of these films. The entire system operates under inert gas atmosphere with a clock speed of 5 minutes and the ability to operate autonomously for 24 hours.
Biography
Dr. Udo Bach is a full professor at Monash University and the Monash Node Leader of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science. He received his PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland) working in the research group of Prof Michael Grätzel and worked for 3 years in a technology start-up company in Dublin (Ireland). Subsequently he spent 1 year as a postdoc in the group of Prof. Paul Alivisatos in UC Berkeley (USA) before moving to Monash University in November 2005 to establish his own research group. Prof Bach has a strong background in the area of photovoltaics and nanofabrication. His research is focused on perovskites, lead-free absorbers and high-throughput materials discovery.