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Dr Nicholas Grant

Job Title
Assistant Professor
Department
School of Engineering
Research Interests

To undertake novel research on the development of surface layers to improve interfacial properties in future high efficiency silicon based photovoltaic (PV) devices, to enhance the longevity and storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries and to enable high modulation efficiencies and resolution for THz metamaterial applications. I am interested in depositing surface layers by atomic layer deposition which include aluminium oxide, zinc oxide, tin oxide, hafnium oxide, aluminium nitride and silicon nitride. I'm actively involved in detecting and analysing light induced defects in gallium doped silicon materials and solar cells, and developing methods to mitigate their impact on the solar cell efficiency.

Biography

Nicholas E. Grant studied Physics at the University of Adelaide graduating with Honours in 2007. In 2008 he undertook a PhD in Photovoltaic Engineering at the Australian National University, graduating in 2012. In 2013, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, where he developed low temperature passivation methods to detect, quantify and annihilate bulk silicon defects. In 2016, he moved to the UK and undertook a research fellow position at the University of Warwick where he is working towards improving silicon photovoltaic material performance, and developing novel organic thin films. In 2021 he became an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, where he is looking to diverse his research expertise in the fields of energy storage, metamaterials and space.

Title Funder Award start Award end
Charged oxide inversion layer (COIL) solar cells EPSRC 01 Dec 2021 31 Aug 2025
A silicon pillared photo-modulator: advancing THz imaging capabilities University of Manchester 01 Oct 2024 28 Apr 2025
Dark matter and the ultimate performance limit of semiconductor silicon Leverhulme Trust 01 Apr 2021 31 Mar 2024
Computational spectral imaging in the THz band EPSRC 01 Sep 2019 29 Feb 2024
A collaboration to advance gallium doped silicon for high efficiency solar cells EPSRC 01 Apr 2022 30 Sep 2023
Atomic Layer Deposition of Nanoscale Coatings for Battery Anodes Royal Society 31 Jan 2022 31 Mar 2023