One of the top scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has been recognised by international and local awards for his cutting-edge research achievements.
Professor Andrey Rogach of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has been elected as the only recipient of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation from Hong Kong in 2018. He has also been awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the Croucher Foundation for his pioneering work on perovskite nanocrystals-enabled devices.
Professor Rogach, Chair Professor of Photonic Materials and Founding Director of the Centre for Functional Photonics, has been working on nanocrystals made of different kinds of materials for over 30 years, and continues and significantly extends this research avenue at CityU.
“I am very excited and feel very proud about getting these prestigious awards,” said Professor Rogach, who joined CityU in 2009 from the University of Munich, Germany. He maintains very close research cooperation with scientists in Germany, both at his previous location in Munich and at the Technical University of Dresden.
Professor Rogach’s research focuses on the synthesis, assembly and optical spectroscopy of semiconductor and metal nanocrystals and their hybrid structures, as well as their use for energy-related and optoelectronic applications, including photocatalytic hydrogen generation from water, photodetectors, light emitting devices, and displays.
Professor Rogach’s earlier work contributed to the appearance and further development of what is now known as “conventional” II-VI semiconductor quantum dots and has been extended to several other light-emitting colloidal nanomaterials, such as metal nanoclusters, carbon dots, and perovskite nanocrystals.
“We design light emitting nanomaterials to improve the quality of life and synthesise those materials to make light emission brighter, more stable and with better colouring,” said Professor Rogach. “Our colleague engineers can then apply them for LEDs and displays.”
His over 400 scientific publications in these fields have been extensively cited (over 40,000), which placed him 51st worldwide among “100 Top Materials Scientists of the Past Decade” by Thomson Reuters in 2011. In 2018, Professor Rogach was recognised as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics.
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany grants up to 100 Humboldt Research Awards to internationally renowned academics every year. The Foundation maintains a network of well over 29,000 Humboldtians, including 55 Nobel Laureates, from all disciplines in more than 140 countries.
The Croucher Senior Research Fellowships scheme was introduced in Hong Kong in 1997. It is awarded to local academics who have excelled in scientific research as judged by leading international scientists invited to provide confidential reviews of candidates nominated in a competitive exercise.
