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Derya Baran

 Associate Professor, Material Science and Engineering

Physical Science and Engineering Division 
Center membership :
KAUST Solar Center

derya.baran@kaust.edu.sa
Organic Materials for Energy Applications (OMEGA) Lab


Affiliations

Education Profile

  • Research Associate, Jülich Forschungszentrum, Germany, 2016
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, UK, 2015
  • PhD, Material Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany, 2014
  • MSc, Chemistry, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, 2010
  • BSc, Chemistry, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, 2008

Research Interests

​Professor Baran's research interests lie in the area of solution processable organic/hybrid soft materials for electronic devices. Such soft semiconductor materials possess a viable platform for printed, large area, stretchable and wearable electronics that can be used as solar cells, smart windows, OFETs, thermoelectrics, sensors and bio-electronics. ​Professor Baran is particularly interested in interface engineering for organic/hybrid solar cells, transparent solar cells for building integrated photovoltaics and stability/degradation studies for long lifetime organic solar cells. She has led projects on i) conjugated polymers for electrochromic devices; ii) non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells; iii) multi-component and multi-layered solar cell devices; and iv) understanding the correlation between recombination and nano-morphology in solution processed solar cells. Professor Baran aims to expand the applications of solution processable organic/hybrid semiconductors and to explore their limits in organic/hybrid thermoelectric devices and bio-electronics in the future.

Selected Publications

  • Baran, D.; Ashraf, S. R.; Hanifi, A. David; Abdelsamie, M.; Gasparini, N.; Rohr, J.; Holliday, S.; Wadsworth, A.; Lockett, S.; Nelson, J.; Brabec, C. J.; Amassian, A.; Salleo, A.; Kirhcartz, T.; Durrant, J. R., McCulloch, I. ,2016, Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells, Nat. Mater. DOI: 10.1038/NMAT4797.
  • Baran, D.; Kirhcartz, T.; Wheeler, S.; Dimitrov, S.; Abdelsamie, M.; Gorman, J.; Ashraf, S. R.; Holliday, S.; Gasparini, N.; Yan, H.; Amassian, A.; Brabec, C. J.; Durrant, J. R.; McCulloch, I., 2016, Reduced voltage losses yield 10% and >1V fullerene free organic solar cells, Energ. Environ. Sci., DOI: 10.1039/C6EE02598F.
  • Gasparini, N.; Jiao, Xuechen, Heumueller, T.; Baran, D.; Matt, G. M.; Fladischer, S.; Spieker, E.; Ade, H.; Brabec, C. J.; Ameri, T., 2016, Designing ternary blend bulk heterojunction solar cells with reduced carrier recombination and a fill factor of 77%, Nat. Energ. 1, 16118.
  • Holliday, S.; Ashraf, S. R.; Wadsworth, A.; Baran, D.; Nielsen, C. B.; Tan, C. H.; Dimitrov, S.; Yousaf, S. A.; Shang, Z.; Gasparini, N.; Brabec, C. J.; Salleo, A.; Durrant, J. R. ; McCulloch, I., 2016, High-efficiency and air-stable P3HT-based polymer solar cells with a new non-fullerene acceptor, Nat. Commun., 7,11585.
  • Hou Y.; Chen W.; Baran D.; Stubhan T.; Luechinger N. A.; Hartmeier B.; Richter M.; Min J.; Chen S.; Ramirez Quiroz C. O.; Li N.; Zhang H.; Heumueller T.; Matt G. J.; Osvet A.; Forberich K.; Zhang Z. G.; Li Y.; Winter B.; Schweizer P.; Spiecker E.; Brabec, C. J., 2016, Overcoming the Interface Losses in Planar Heterojunction Perovskite‐Based Solar Cells, Adv. Mater., 28, 5112–5120.