Harald Ade

Bio

A graduate of Stony Brook University, H. Ade has been a faculty member at NCSU since Nov. 1992, rising through the ranks to Full Professor by 2001, and been named Distinguished Professor of Physics in 2014 and Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor in 2017. He has had an active and continually funded research program (~$14,500,000 total) and served as Director of Graduate Program in Physics from 2006-2013. Recognitions include R&D100 Award, NSF Young Investigator Award, APS Fellow, AAAS Fellow, (NCSU) Alumni Outstanding Research Award, K. F. J. Heinrich Award, and Shirley Price for Outstanding Science and Halbach Award of Innovative Instrumentation (both at the Advanced Light Source). He is a 2017 and 2018 Clarivate Analytics WoS Highly Cited Researcher in Materials Science.

His most distinguished external engagements include serving on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Advanced Light Source (2011- present) and the BESSY-II Synchrotron Facility in Berlin, Germany (2006-2009), as well as the Scientific Advisory Council of the Helmholz Zentrum Berlin, Germany (2009 – 2012).

Area(s) of Expertise

Prof. Ade developed a number of novel instruments and characterization methods, which include Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) microscopy, X-ray linear dichroism microscopy, X-ray photoemission microscopy, resonant x-ray reflectivity and resonant soft x-ray scattering (R-SoXS). Their applications focus primarily on determining the composition, morphology and structure of polymeric and organic electronic materials at the sub-micron spatial scale. R-SoXS has become a method de rigueur for the characterization of organic photovoltaic devices, as it affords high scattering contrast, sensitivity to molecular orientation, and a q-range that matches important lengths-scale of the device morphology. Instrumentation advanced in x-ray microscopy have lead to a commercial instrument by Accel (now Bruker).

Click here to view a larger list of publications.

Publications

• A materials physics perspective on structure–processing–function relations in blends of organic semiconductors , Nature Reviews Materials (2023)
• Control of Host-Matrix Morphology Enables Efficient Deep-Blue Organic Light-Emitting Devices , ADVANCED MATERIALS (2023)
• Emergent molecular traits of lettuce and tomato grown under wavelength-selective solar cells , FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE (2023)
• Near-infrared absorbing acceptor with suppressed triplet exciton generation enabling high performance tandem organic solar cells , NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2023)
• Oligo(ethylene glycol) Side Chain Architecture Enables Alcohol-Processable Conjugated Polymers for Organic Solar Cells , MACROMOLECULES (2023)
• Unveiling re-entrant phase behavior and crystalline-amorphous interactions in semi-conducting polymer:small molecule blends , MATERIALS HORIZONS (2023)
• 16.52% Efficiency All-Polymer Solar Cells with High Tolerance of the Photoactive Layer Thickness , ADVANCED MATERIALS (2022)
• A Benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']Difuran Based Donor Polymer Achieving High-Performance (>17%) Single-Junction Organic Solar Cells with a Fill Factor of 80.4% , ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS (2022)
• A Top-Down Strategy to Engineer ActiveLayer Morphology for Highly Efficient and Stable All-Polymer Solar Cells , ADVANCED MATERIALS (2022)
• Achieving 19% Power Conversion Efficiency in Planar-Mixed Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells Using a Pseudosymmetric Electron Acceptor , ADVANCED MATERIALS (2022)