Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy

Group leader: Mónica Lira-Cantú

Website

Overview

Main research lines

Photovoltaics: Next-generation thin film, organic, hybrid, dye-sensitised, halide perovskite and all-oxide solar cells
Synthesis of nanomaterials by low-cost, low temperature and green solution processing methods
Solution processing methods for the fabrication of solar cells and printed electronics
Degradation studies of the stability of solar cells following ISOS protocols
Semiconductor oxides for energy, ICT applications, printed electronics
Self-powered transparent, flexible electronic and optoelectronic devices

Group leader

Lira Cantu, Mónica

CSIC Research Scientist and Group Leader

After completing a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 1992, Dr Monica Lira-Cantu obtained her Master’s and PhD degrees in Materials Science at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) and the Universitat Automa de Barcelona in 1995 and 1997, respectively. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Schneider Electric and ICMAB until 1998. From 1999 to 2001 she was a permanent senior staff chemist at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering (formerly Mobil Technology Co) in New Jersey (USA), establishing a group on energy-related applications.

Dr Lira-Cantu has received various awards, as well as visiting scientist fellowships at the following laboratories: Universitetet i Oslo (Norway) (ESF, 2003), RisDTU Nationallaboratoriet (Denmark) (AGAUR, 2004/05), and Center for Advanced Science and Innovation (Osaka University, Japan) (Canon Foundation in Europe, 2006). She is group leader of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy since 2006. She obtained a tenured track position at Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in 2007 and was promoted to Scientific Researcher in 2017.

She is currently evaluator for the European Commission for the ERC Starting, Consolidator and Advanced grants. Since 2021 she is panel member of the new PE11 Materials Engineering of the ERC Advanced Grants. She has coordinated and organised more than 18 scientific conferences and is scientific referee for more than 20 international and European research agencies, and 52 scientific journals. Dr Lira is a member of the editorial board of SN Applied Science (Nature), Journal of Materials Chemistry C (RSC), Journal of Physics Energy (IOP), Journal of Photonics for Energy (SPIE) and Frontiers in Energy Research: Solar Energy (Frontiers). Since 2016 she is a member of the advisory board for the Nanotechnology and Chemical Science degree (INCQ) of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM, Mexico). In 2021 she became president of the National Advisory Board of the ITESM (Mexico) for the INT career.

The research interests of Dr Lira lie in the synthesis and application of nanostructured materials for highly efficient and high stable next-generation thin-film solar cells: halide-perovskite, dye-sensitised, alloxide and organic solar cells. Her group has developed halide perovskite solar cells with > 21% efficiency and 1000 h stability under continuous illumination. The group also focuses on the application of solar cells in printed batteryless, self-powered electronics for the IoT (on flexible, transparent and/or smart materials).

Dr Monica Lira-Cantu has more than 125 scientific publications, among them more than 110 journal articles, 1 edited book, 10 book chapters, 9 patents. According to Google Scholar, she has more than 9000 citations overall and H index of 50.