Arundhati Deshmukh

Year awarded: 2021

Research Lab: Prof. Hema Karunadasa

Bio:

Arundhati got her PhD in Chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Working with Prof. Justin Caram, she designed supramolecular assemblies of organic dyes that can act as light harvesting antennas with tunable properties beyond the visible spectral region into shortwave infrared. Before that, she did a master’s thesis on detecting environmental pollutants with conjugated polymers as sensors, earning a BS-MS degree at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal. She enjoys communicating science in and outside academia. She volunteered in the CNSI Outreach Program, Exploring Your Universe and other outreach activities at UCLA. She was also a founding member and president of Joint Research Safety Initiative at UCLA, a student run organization for better safety culture and awareness.

Nipping Perovskite Instabilities in the Bud

Perovskites are gaining momentum as the next-generation materials for solar cells and optoelectronic applications. However, several atomic level processes alter the intrinsic material properties under normal operating conditions, causing concerns for the long term stabilities and efficiencies of perovskite containing devices. By-products of such processes can often leak out of the device, raising safety concerns. Arundhati’s postdoctoral work aims to inhibit such processes at their source. At Stanford, Arundhati will work with Prof. Hemamala Karunadasa to elucidate the mechanisms of such degradation  using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy and design new perovskites that will be intrinsically resistant to the degradation processes.