Derya Baran

Assistant Professor of Material Science and Engineering

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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.

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.

Selected Publications

  • A universal solution processed interfacial bilayer enabling ohmic contact in organic and hybrid optoelectronic devices. Troughton, J., Neophytou, M., Gasparini, N., Seitkhan, A., Isikgor, F.H., Song, X., ...Baran, D. Energy and Environmental Science, 13(1), 268-276, (2020).
  • Low-Temperature-Processed Colloidal Quantum Dots as Building Blocks for Thermoelectrics. Nugraha, M.I., Kim, H., Sun, B., Haque, M.A., de Arquer, F.P.G., Villalva, ...Baran, D. Advanced Energy Materials, 9(13), (2019).
  • Highly Stretchable and Air-Stable PEDOT:PSS/Ionic Liquid Composites for Efficient Organic Thermoelectrics. Kee, S., Kim, H., Paleti, S.H.K., El Labban, A., Neophytou, M., Emwas, A.-H., ...Baran, D. Chemistry of Materials, 31(9), 3519-3526, (2019).
  • Self-Healing and Stretchable 3D-Printed Organic Thermoelectrics. Kee, S., Haque, M.A., Corzo, D., Alshareef, H.N., Baran, D. Advanced Functional Materials, 29(51), (2019).
  • Dual Sensitizer and Processing-Aid Behavior of Donor Enables Efficient Ternary Organic Solar Cells. Song, X., Gasparini, N., Nahid, M.M., Paleti, S.H.K., Wang, J.-L., Ade, H., Baran, D. Joule, 3(3), 846-857, (2019).
  • Robust nonfullerene solar cells approaching unity external quantum efficiency enabled by suppression of geminate recombination. Baran, D., Gasparini, N., Wadsworth, A., Tan, C.H., Wehbe, N., Song, X., ...McCulloch, I. Nature Communications, 9(1), (2018).
  • Controlling Blend Morphology for Ultrahigh Current Density in Nonfullerene Acceptor-Based Organic Solar Cells. Song, X., Gasparini, N., Ye, L., Yao, H., Hou, J., Ade, H., Baran, D. ACS Energy Letters, 3(3), 669-676, (2018).

Education

  • Ph.D., Material Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany, 2014
  • M.Sc., Chemistry, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, 2010
  • B.Sc., Chemistry, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, 2008

Professional Profile

  • 2016: Research Associate, Jülich Forschungszentrum, Germany
  •  2015​​: Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, UK

KAUST Affiliations

  • ​​​KAUST Solar Center (KSC)
  • Division of Physical Science and Engineering (PSE)​​
  • Material Science and Engineering Program