Anita Ho-Baillie receives ARC Future Fellowship

The ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science congratulates Associate Investigator Professor Anita Ho-Baillie on being awarded an ARC Future Fellowship.

The Future Fellowships program provides four-year fellowships to outstanding Australian mid-career researchers to undertake high-quality research in areas of national and international benefit.

Anita, the John Hooke Chair of Nanoscience at the University of Sydney, has research interests that include engineering of solar materials and devices at the nanoscale and integrating them onto all kinds of surfaces, generating clean energy for different applications.

The Future Fellowship will enable Anita to further her research into the use of emerging photovoltaics materials to provide sustainable energy for space hardware, including satellites and vehicles.

There has been a rapid recent growth in space exploration and experimentation. As we move into the era of 'commercial space', cost will become paramount, necessitating the development of new cost-effective photovoltaic technologies.

Metal halide perovskite solar cells show the greatest potential. They have a higher power to weight ratio and are significantly cheaper to be manufactured compared to incumbent space cells.

Anita’s project aims to develop and demonstrate perovskite solar cells to achieve high power conversion efficiencies and long operating lifetimes while withstanding the extreme demands of space.

Anita said: “I really appreciate that the University of Sydney believes in me. I’m very, very happy that I’m supported for this exciting project, there will be additional resources for the project and my team is very much energised.”