Meet the Grantee: Remco W. A. Havenith
Photovoltaic materials in theory and experiment – A successful collaboration between Bayreuth und Groningen
Our Grantee Dr Remco W. A. Havenith is a theoretician who has been performing simulations explaining the experimental results obtained by the group of his host, Junior-Professor Eva M. Herzig.
What are the foci of your joint research funded by the Short Term Grant?
Remco Havenith: Our joint research is on photovoltaic materials. The group in Bayreuth makes the devices, and I do simulations. We have performed simulations on the materials and we used the results from the simulations to explain the experimental results that were obtained by the Bayreuth group.
The results are now published in Small (https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202207537).
In what way is your work interdisciplinary, and what does interdisciplinarity mean to you in academic work and life?
RH: Interdiciplinary means for me, as a theoretician, to collaborate with experimentalists, and we work together to explain observations.
What is in your opinion the future of your field, and in what way can research in your field contribute to meeting the urgent challenges of our time?
RH: I do simulations. Using simulations we can provide insight in how processes work. Hence, we can study the mechanistic details of a particular process. This can be applied for making devices that can be used to harvest solar energy, or we can study catalytic reaction mechanisms. The techniques that I use can be used for many different applications, so my research can be used to solve fundamental questions that need to be answered for solving the challenges of our time.
What does international research mobility mean to you?
RH: International mobility is a good opportunity to expand the network, and to collaborate with other groups. Being together for disucssions works much better than doing everything via video calls or email. Unfortunately, Covid has prevented that for some time.
How did the current challenges influence your cooperation?
RH: I have expanded my network, and we started new projects. Fabian Feller, the PhD student of my host, has already visited me in Groningen.
The Grantee
Dr Remco W. A. Havenith is working at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry and the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.