Dr Baohua Jia, Swinburne University of Technology
01 September 2012
More efficient solar cells with quantum dots
The global race to develop high efficiency, low cost solar energy is fierce. And Baohua Jia and her colleagues are front runners.
Conventional solar cells are efficient, but thick and expensive. Baohua and her colleagues imagine a future when solar cells are so thin and cheap that city skyscrapers will be powered by a coating on their glass. But at present such thin-film solar cells are not efficient enough for general use.
Using her knowledge of nanotechnology and optics, Baohua and her colleagues have already created thin-film solar cells that are more than 20 per cent more efficient than those of her competitors. They have already lodged two patents. Her L’Oréal For Women in Science allowed her to continue her work and pursue even better results.
Qualifications
2007 PhD (Optics), Swinburne University of Technology
2003 Masters of Science (Optical communications), Nankai University, P.R. China
2000 Bachelor of Science (Applied Optics) and Bachelor of Economics (Management), Nankai University, P.R. China
Career highlights, awards, fellowships, grants
2010-2015 Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Micro-Photonics, Swinburne University of Technology
2012-2015 ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, “Refractive index manipulation in photonic bandgap materials for highly efficient far-field three-dimensional nonlinear nanofocusing”, awarded to Jia B.
2011 Vice-Chancellor’s Industry Engagement Award, Swinburne University of Technology
2010 Victoria Fellowship, Victorian State Government
2010 International Science Linkages – Science Academies Program travel grant for scientific visits to Europe, Australian Academy of Science.
2010 French Fellowship, Australian French Association for Science and Technology
2011 ARC LIEF (Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities) grant, “Three-dimensional super-resolution nanophotonic fabrication facility”, awarded to Gu M., Gan X., McPhedran R.C., Zhang C., Alameh K., Lewis R.A., Peng, G-D., Catchpole K.R., Juodkazis S., Day D., Jia B., Pan A.V., Horvat J., Canagasabey A., Rode, A.V, de Sterke C.M., Vasilie M.
2009-2011 ARC Discovery Grant/ARC Postdoctoral Fellow “Functional micro-multiplexers based on nonlinear three-dimensional photonic crystal Superprism”, awarded to Jia, B., Wang X.
2009-2010 Research Fellow, ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, Project Manager, Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS)—an ARC Centre of Excellence
2009 & 2010 Travel grant for Australian-China Young Scientist Exchange scheme, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
2009 Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award (Early Career) for research excellence, Swinburne University of Technology
2008 Faculty of Engineering and Industrial initiative grant award, Swinburne University of Technology
2006-2009 Postdoctoral Fellow, Project Manager, Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS)—an ARC Centre of Excellence
2005 Biotechnology Entrepreneur Young Achievement Australia Award
Top five publications
Chen X., Jia B., Saha J., Cai B., Stokes N., Qiao Q., Wang Y., Shi Z., Gu M. (2012) Broadband enhancement in thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells enabled by nucleated silver nanoparticles, Nano Letters 12, 2187-2192. (Impact factor 13.2, 3 citations)
Chen J., Wang Y., Jia B., Geng T., Li X., Feng L., Hu J., Liang B., Zhang X., Gu M., Zhuang S. (2011) Observation of the inverse Doppler effect in negative-index materials at optical frequencies, Nature Photonics 5:239–245. (Impact factor 29.3, 6 citations)
Jia B., Buso D., Li J., Gu M. (2010) Functional 3D photonic crystals fabricated in highly nonlinear quantum dot nanocomposites, Advanced Materials 22(22):2463-2467. (Impact factor 13.9, 4 citations)
Jia B., Kang H., Li J., Gu M. (2009) Use of radially polarized beams in 3D photonic crystal fabrication with the two-photon polymerization method, Optics Letters 34:1918-1920. (Impact factor 3.3, 18 citations)
Li J., Jia B., Bullen C., Serbin J., and Gu M. (2007) Spectral redistribution and optical gain in spontaneous emission from quantum-dot-infiltrated 3D woodpile photonic crystals for telecommunications, Advanced Materials 19:3276-3080. (Impact factor 13.9, 23 citations)
