Our research focuses on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors for low-cost, transformative electronics applications including photovoltaics for energy, LEDs for lighting and X-ray detectors for medical imaging. We use optical spectroscopy to understand material and device photophysics on a range of length and time scales, and relate these characteristics directly to local chemical, structural and morphological properties through multimodal measurements. This provides a unique platform to discover new semiconducting materials, unveil power loss mechanisms in devices, guide innovative device designs, and push device performance to the limits. Our developed devices and operando imaging approaches are applicable to a range of fields including energy materials, medical imaging and biological systems. We also have a strong emphasis in the group on making our work accessible to the public through a number of outreach and media activities, and on making science in our area more inclusive and diverse.
HIGHLIGHTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
- *Dubajic, M.; *Neilson, J. R.; Klarbring, J.; Liang, X.; Bird, S. A.; Rule, K. C.; Auckett, J. E.; Selby, T. A.; Tumen-Ulzii, G.; Lu, Y.; Jung, Y.- K.; V. Zimmerman, M.; Pusch, A.; Gu, L.; Jia, X.; Wu, Q.; Trowbridge, J. C.; Mozur, E. M.; Minelli, A.; Roth, N.; Orr, K. W .P.; Soufani, A. M.; Kahman, S.; Kabakova, I.; Ding, J.; Wu, T.; Conibeer, G. J.; Bremner, S. P.; *Neilson, M. P.; *Walsh, A.; *Stranks, S. D. Dynamic Nanodomains Dictate Macroscopic Properties in Lead Halide Perovskites Nature Nanotechnology 2025, In Press
- Frohna, K.; Chosy, C.; Al-Ashouri, A.; Scheler, F.; Chian, Y. -H.; Dubajic, M.; Parker, J. E.; Walker, J. M.; Zimmerman, L.; Selby, T. A.; Lu, Y.; Roose, B.; Albrecht, S.; *Anaya, M.; *Stranks, S. D. The impact of interfacial quality and nanoscale performance disorder on the stability of alloyed perovskite solar cells Nature Energy 2025, 10, 66-76
- Pan, L.; Dai, L.; Burton, O. J.; Chen, L.; Andrei, V.; Zhang, Y.; Ren, D.; Cheng, J.; Wu, L.; Frohna, K.; Abfalterer, A.; Yang, T. C-J.; Niu, W.; Xia, M.; Hofmann, S.; Dyson, P. J.; Reisner, E.; Sirringhaus, H.; *Luo, J.; *Hagfeldt, A.; *Grätzel, M.; *Stranks, S. D.; High carrier mobility along the [111] orientation in Cu2O photoelectrodes Nature 2024, 628, 765-770
- Ji, K.; Lin, W.; Sun, Y.; Cui, L.; Shamsi, J.; Chiang, Y-H.; Chen, J.; Tennyson, E. M.; Dai, L.; Li, Q.; Frohna, K.; Anaya, M.; Greenham, N. C.; *Stranks, S. D. Self-supervised Deep Learning for Tracking Degradation of Perovskite LEDs with Multispectral Imaging Nature Machine Intelligence 2023, 5, 1225–1235
- Macpherson, S.; Doherty, T. A. S.; Winchester, A. J.; Kosar, S.; Johnstone, D. N.; Chiang, Y.-H.; Galkowski, K.; Anaya, M.; Frohna, K.; Iqbal, A. N.; Nagane, S.; Roose, B.; Andaji-Garmaroudi, Z.; Orr, K. W. P.; Parker, J. E.; Midgley, P. A.; *Dani, K. M.; *Stranks, S. D. Local nanoscale phase impurities are degradation sites in halide perovskites Nature 2022, 607, 294-300
SELECTED RECENT MEDIA AND IMPACT:
- Clarity Sensors, recent spin-out from the group, receives an EIC Transitions Award (€2.5M) to commercialise our X-ray detectors for low-dose medical imaging (April 2025)
- Mongolia Visit - Professor Stranks & Dr Ganbataar Tumen-Ulzii host The Chairman of Parliament of Mongolia (March 2025)
- People Doing Physics Podcast Exploring the Intersection of Physics and Business with Professor Sam Stranks (October 2024)
- The Cost of Solar Power: How Low Can we go? Professor Sam Stranks recently was interviewed on Solar Cell Technology (October 2024)
- Fuel from the Sun Competition - Team reaches EU ‘Fuel from the Sun’ Final with artificial leaves capable of producing a sustainable solar fuel (December 2022)
- Energy Unplugged podcast - A conversation between Sam Stranks and Aurora Energy founder John Feddersen about PV and research (April 2022)
- How a new solar and lighting technology could propel a renewable energy transformation - Article in The Conversation by Sam (September 2020)
We acknowledge generous support from the European Research Council (HYPERION), the Royal Society, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Faraday Institute, the Leverhulme Trust and the European Commission.