2024 Laureate Profile: Professor Hongxia Wang – 2024 Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship

Administering Organisation: Queensland University of Technology

Fellowship Project Summary

FL240100212 - Molecular engineering and doping for efficient and affordable solar cells

Professor Wang aims to make solar cells highly efficient at energy conversion and more durable, maximising their cost-effectiveness and useful life. This project will use molecular engineering and doping techniques to maintain durability and good photoactivity in the perovskite (a metal compound), and to replace gold electrodes with superior low-cost carbon alternatives that have well-tuned and highly efficient electronic and surface properties. The outcomes of Professor Wang’s research will lift Australia’s research standing in this field and build manufacturing capability in a significant industry of the future. This project will also position Australia to capitalise on its well-known natural advantage in exploiting solar energy, and to create more skilled jobs and valuable export opportunities. Professor Wang’s development of these innovative and reliable technologies aligns with the two priority areas in Australian Government National Reconstruction Fund announced in 2022: “Renewables and Low Emission Technologies” and “Enabling Capabilities”.

Ambassadorial and mentoring role 

Through the Georgina Sweet Fellowship, Professor Wang will support Higher Degree by Research students (HDR), early-career researchers (ECRs) and mid-career researchers (MCRs) in their career development in multidisciplinary areas spanning chemistry, materials science, and physics. With particular focus on women and others who are systematically disadvantaged, Professor Wang will achieve this through a series of activities in each year of the Laureate program. 

Australian Research Council Funding: $3,023,860