Advent calendar - December 11th - Matteo Pitaro

In the Zernike Institute Advent Calendar, we are presenting 24 short spotlights in December. In these specials, we highlight PhD students, postdocs, support staff and technicians of our research groups and team - providing a glimpse in their typical day at work. In Episode 11 meet Matteo Pitaro, PhD student in the Photophysics & OptoElectronics group of Prof. Maria A. Loi.

I would say that the sun is my best friend. When I was a child, I used to spend most of the year bathing in the sun. Yes, I’m coming from Italy, and when I moved to the Netherlands I started missing my friend. So, I decided to closely work with it, and I joined Professor Maria Antonietta Loi’s group (Photophysics and Optoelectronics) as a Ph.D. student, working on solar cells.

The goal of my project is to engineer a family of hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductors (perovskites), to make them more efficient and stable when converting sunlight into free carriers in solar cell devices. Apart from perovskite, other layers are involved to extract and collect the free carriers. The higher device’s efficiency and stability also depend on these extracting layers, which I investigate and deeply analyze. I mostly spend my week fabricating my devices, looking at them with my electronic (SEM) or X-ray eyes.

When I am not working in the lab, I like exploring Groningen countryside and spending time in nature, biking, or simply walking. As you can guess from my nationality, I like cooking, especially for my foreign friends. Being in an international city like Groningen, makes me feel open-minded and a world citizen.