Friday, 11 August, 2017
ERC Starting Grant for Alexander Urban
Early-career researcher receives generously endowed Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC)
Extraordinary CeNS member Dr. Alexander Urban has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). These much sought-after, 5-year grants are each worth approximately 1.5 million euros in all, and are among the most prestigious of all European research awards. Submissions are evaluated solely on the basis of the applicant’s previous scientific record and the quality of the proposed project. Moreover, LMU offers the option of appointment to a Tenure Track Professorship to successful grantees, which can be converted into a permanent faculty position, subject to a positive assessment of performance.
Dr. Alexander Urban joined the Department of Photonics and Optoelectronics at LMU’s Faculty of Physics in 2014 as a group leader. His research group studies the optical and electrical properties of nanocrystals, focusing in particular on perovskites, which have shown great promise for use in solar cells, light-emitting diodes and lasers, and on carbon-based and plasmonic nanoparticles.
His ERC project, entitled PINNACLE, focuses on lead halide-based perovskites, with a view to opening up new optoelectronic applications for this intriguing class of materials. The basic idea is to use a new method for the synthesis of perovskite nanocrystals that would improve their stability, and allow their optical, electrical and photonic properties to be more easily determined and tuned for specific applications. Urban hopes that his novel nanocrystals will eventually find use in LEDs and lasers.
Alexander Urban studied Physics at Karlsruhe University (TH) and at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. He obtained his PhD at LMU in 2010 with a thesis on the Optothermal Manipulation of Phospholipid Membranes with Gold Nanoparticles. From 2011 until 2014 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University in Houston (Texas), before moving back to LMU.