Umaine-led Research Team Designing New, High Entropy Materials For Optoelectronics

ORONO — A University of Maine-led research team, in collaboration with the University of Alabama, will design a new class of materials capable of improving solar cells, lasers and other optoelectronic devices that convert light into energy with a $525,000 collaborative research award from the National Science Foundation.Liping Yu, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Maine, will lead the project and collaborate with Robert Lad, a professor of physics at UMaine, and Feng Yan, an assistant professor with the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alabama. Perovskite halides exhibit strong potential for developing more efficient optoelectronic devices because they possess “desired light absorption, long carrier lifetimes and remarkable defect tolerance,” Yu says.