News

2025

• HyMaD group leader Wouter Van Gompel received the junior PRISM prize from Istituto di Struttura della Materia Prize (CNR-ISM) institute in Italy. This prize is awarded annually to a researcher below the age of 35 in recognition of significant work in the field of Materials Science performed over the past five years.

• Congrats to HyMaD group member Ilan Devroey for his first publication as a first author, in Nanoscale Horizons! We investigated a novel edge-sharing metal halide perovskite containing an electroactive organic cation, a functionalized dibenzocarbazole, and compared its photophysics to the 2D layered perovskite analogue. The distorted edge-sharing hybrid shows charge-transfer-mediated triplet formation and coherent phonons via enhanced exciton-phonon coupling, contrasting its corner-sharing 2D perovskite analogue.

• HyMaD group leader Prof. Wouter Van Gompel is giving an invited talk in the #PeroFun symposium of the MATSUSFall25 nanoGe conference in Valencia (October 20-24). He will present recent work of HyMaD and collaborators on controlling the optical and electronic properties of 2D hybrid perovskites through molecular design. He will also chair one of the sessions of the symposium.

• Tanushree Changkakoti started as a Ph.D. student in the CRM² group at the Université de Lorraine, partner in EURECA-PRO, with Prof. Wouter Van Gompel acting as co-supervisor. Dr. Sébastien Pillet (Lorraine) is the supervisor, and Dr. Elodie Tailleur (Lorraine) acts as the second co-supervisor. Tanushree will conduct research jointly with the HyMaD group. The research will focus on lead-free hybrid perovskite ferroelectrics for self-powered optoelectronics.
  We wish Tanushree the best of luck with her research and look forward to hosting her for a research internship in our group!

• The HyMaD group welcomes two new group members: 
  
  Ella Cuyvers, Ph.D. student supervised by Prof. Wouter Van Gompel. Ella will work on low-dimensional hybrid perovskites for light detection.
  
  Brent Motmans, Ph.D. student supervised by Prof. Danny Vanpoucke (QuATOMs group at UHasselt) and co-supervised by Prof. Wouter Van Gompel. Brent will work on the computational modelling of chiral hybrid perovskites.

     We wish them both the best of luck with their research!

• Our collaborative work with the groups of Prof. Samuel Stranks at the University of Cambridge and Prof. Linn Leppert at the University of Twente is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
  It comprises a detailed experimental-computational study of out-of-plane exciton transport in 2D hybrid perovskites containing pyrene organic cations. We uncover the importance of the energetic alignment between the organic and inorganic layers as well as the orientation of the pyrene core relative to the inorganic framework for exciton delocalization across the organic-inorganic interface.
  The HyMaD group designed, synthesized, and characterized the 2D hybrid perovskites containing electroactive pyrene organic cations. Congrats to all the co-authors!

• 16th of June - 27th of June: HyMaD group leader Prof. Wouter Van Gompel is visiting the Université de Lorraine for two weeks as an invited visiting professor in the CRM² research group of the Faculty for Sciences and Technology. He gave a lecture entitled 'Tuning the properties of 2D layered hybrid perovskites through molecular design' to staff and students of the department on the 23rd.

• HyMaD group leader Prof. Wouter Van Gompel is giving an invited talk in the EL06 symposium of the 2025 MRS Spring meeting in Seattle (April 7-11). He will present recent work of HyMaD and collaborators on the design and application of tailored organic molecules for hybrid perovskites and their devices. He will also chair a session of the symposium focused on the upscaling of perovskite devices.

• Our collaborative work together with the groups of Prof. Pieter Geiregat at UGent and Prof. Justin Hodgkiss at the Victoria University of Wellington on energy funneling and singlet-triplet annihilation in quasi-2D perovskite films has been published in Advanced Materials. Congrats to all the co-authors!

• 3rd of March - 14th of March: HyMaD group leader Prof. Wouter Van Gompel is visiting the Université de Lorraine for two weeks as an invited visiting professor in the CRM² research group of the Faculty for Sciences and Technology.

• Congrats to Dr. Arthur Maufort for his second publication as a first author, shared with Dr. Melissa Van Landeghem (OOE group), published in Chemical Science (RSC)! We investigated thermochromism and piezochromism in 2D perovskite materials containing a rigid interdigitated organic bilayer using emission spectroscopy and single-crystal XRD as a function of increasing pressure and reduced temperature. Coincidentally, this is our first publication with the CRM² group from the Université de Lorraine, a partner in EURECA-PRO.

• The HyMaD group is happy to announce that Dr. Alfonsina Torimtubun has received a prestigious Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship and will join the group in September 2025 as a postdoctoral fellow, jointly with the OOE group of Prof. Koen Vandewal at the physics department. We look forward to hosting Alfonsina!

• The Weave project INTENSITY, funded by the FWO, F.R.S.-FNRS, and DFG, started on the 1st of January 2025. In this project, HyMaD joins forces with the CMN group of UMons (Dr. David Beljonne and Dr. Claudio Quarti) and KahmannLab at TU Chemnitz (Prof. dr. Simon Kahmann) with the goal of understanding and controlling energy transfer in 2D HOIPs in order to tune their emission properties.

2024

• Congrats to Dr. Arthur Maufort for successfully defending his Ph.D. on the 23rd of October!

• Our collaborative work together with the group of Prof. Paulina Płochocka at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology on the engineering of the effective mass of charge carriers in 2D perovskites through tuning of the octahedral distortion is published in J. Phys. Chem. C. Congrats to all the co-authors!

• Congrats to Stijn Lenaers for his first publication as a first author, published in Advanced Functional Materials (Wiley)! We show that a phosphonic acid derivative with a pyrene organic core can act as a HTL, resulting in inverted perovskite solar cells with enhanced stability, efficiency, and reproducibility as compared to the literature reference 2PACz.

• Congrats to HyMaD Ph.D. student Robin Erkens for successfully obtaining a personal Ph.D. grant from the FWO!

• The HyMaD group welcomes a new Ph.D. student, Arne Verding. We wish Arne the best of luck with his research on energy level tuning in 2D perovskites for transistor applications.

• On the 15 of May, the HyMaD group was happy to host Prof. dr. Letian Dou (Purdue University, U.S.) at Hasselt University. Prof. Dou gave a lecture entitled 'Supramolecular Assembly and Light-Emission in Organic Semiconductor-incorporated Perovskite (OSiP)'

• Prof. Wouter Van Gompel and Drs. Arthur Maufort will be representing HyMaD at the MRS Spring conference in Seattle from the 7th till the 9th of May. Both will give a talk in the "QT03: Physics of 2D Halide and Chalcogenides Semiconductors" symposium.

• Prof. Wouter Van Gompel and Drs. Stijn Lenaers will be representing HyMaD at the MATSUS24 conference in Barcelona from the 4th till the 8th of March. Wouter will give a talk in the "#2Dpero" symposium, Stijn will present his work in the poster session.

• Congrats to Arthur Maufort for his first publication as a first author, published in Inorganic Chemistry (ACS)! It presents a detailed study of the non-covalent interactions in 2D HOIPs containing benzotriazole-based organic cations that show interdigitation in the organic bilayer.

2023

• Congrats to HyMaD Ph.D. student Aleksandra (Ola) Ciesielska for successfully obtaining a personal Ph.D. grant from the FWO!

• The HyMaD group welcomes three new PhD students: Aleksandra (Ola) Ciesielska, Robin Erkens, and Ediz Garip. We wish them the best of luck with their research!

• Wouter Van Gompel is appointed as Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in the Chemistry department of Hasselt University and joins the research institute imo-imomec as a principal investigator. Wouter takes over the formal lead of the HyMaD group from Emeritus Professor Dirk Vanderzande. He is supported by Dr. Laurence Lutsen, Strategic Research Manager at IMEC, for the acquisition of strategic research funding and contacts with industry.

• Our collaborative work together with the groups of Prof. Sam Stranks and Prof. Akshay Rao at the University of Cambridge on the charge transfer dynamics between the organic and inorganic layers of carbazole 2D perovskites has been published in JACS. Congrats to all the co-authors, with Wouter as a shared-first author!

• Wouter's invited perspective paper on 2D perovskites containing conjugated organic cations is published in Journal of Materials Chemistry C!

• Our collaborative work together with the group of Prof. René Janssen (TU/e) on the use of benzotriazole organic cations to passivate 3D FAPI perovskite for solar cells has been published in ACS Appl. Energy Materials. Congrats to all the co-authors!