E-MRS: Prizes for two PhD students at HZB
PhD students Hannes Hempel and Sara Niedenzu have earned awards at the E-MRS 2018.
In her first year of doctoral studies, Sara Niedenzu has been awarded a Poster Prize.
At the spring meeting of the European Materials Research Society from 18-22 June 2018 in Strasbourg, Hannes Hempel received the prize for the best talk and Sara Niedenzu was awarded for her poster. Both are PhD students at the MatSEC graduate school at HZB. The E-MRS spring conference is the largest materials research conference in Europe with 2,500 participants.
With his talk, Hannes Hempel applied for the prize of the symposium on thin-film chalcogenides in photovoltaics, which was attended by about 350 experts. The physicist, who is working on his doctorate in Thomas Unold's team, explained the influence of "bandtails" on the transport properties and recombination of charge carriers in polycrystalline kesterites. "I was one of four finalists in the final selection, where we were able to present our career, our role in the team and once again the main results. After all, me and another researcher won," explains Hempel, who is not only pleased about the recognition but also about the prize money of 450 €. In the future he will set up the new laboratory of Thomas Unold for terahertz spectroscopy, in which ultra-fast dynamics of the crystal lattice can be characterized in addition to mobility and lifetime of charge carriers.
Sara Niedenzu presented the crystal structures of chalcogenide semiconductors with larger band gaps on her poster. It deals with the synthesis of polycrystalline powders of different mixing series and the structural characterization of these materials, which are used as materials for energy conversion in photovoltaics. Sara Niedenzu has just finished her first year in the team of Prof. Susan Schorr, who congratulates her: "It's great to receive an award at this early stage of the doctorate at an international conference", Susan Schorr says.
Title of talk given by Hannes Hempel: “Charge Carrier Dynamics in Tail States of polycrystalline Cu2ZnSnSe4“.
Publication on the topic: “Intragrain charge transport in kesterite thin films - Limits arising from carrier localization“
Poster by Sara Niedenzu: “Structural characterization of wide bandgap Cu‐Zn‐IV‐chalcogenide based semiconductors”
Link to E-MRS 2018
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