Professor Laura Herz FRS has been awarded the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal for her outstanding research on the physics of light interaction and energy conversion in semiconductors, including metal-halide perovskites, nanomaterials and molecules, which has had profound implications for solar cell development.
Professor Herz’s research explores how light interacts with novel semiconductor materials and has helped establish the physical principles that underpin the development of highly efficient next-generation solar cells. Her group studies how light creates mobile electrical charges, how these charges move through a semiconductor and why they are sometimes lost before they can be used. By uncovering these fundamental physical processes, this enables scientists and engineers to design materials that convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently. Much of her current work focuses on metal-halide perovskites, a new class of semiconductors that has transformed solar-cell research over the past decade because they can be made inexpensively while achieving exceptionally high efficiencies.
She has received numerous awards for her research, including the Institute of Physics' Michael Faraday Medal and Prize and has been listed by Clarivate Analytics as Highly Cited Researcher since 2018. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Materials Research Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics. Alongside her research, she is committed to mentoring early-career scientists and to supporting the wider research community through leadership, collaboration and public engagement.
‘I am deeply honoured to receive the Rumford Medal,’ comments Professor Herz. ‘The award highlights how curiosity-driven physics can make important contributions towards solving one of society's greatest challenges: the development of affordable and sustainable energy technologies. This work would not have been possible without the creativity, dedication and generosity of the many outstanding students, postdoctoral researchers and collaborators with whom I have had the privilege to work over the years. I am sincerely grateful to them, and to the Royal Society, for this recognition.’
‘I am absolutely delighted that Laura has been recognised with the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal,’ comments Professor Andrew Boothroyd, head of the Department of Physics. ‘She is a highly skilful experimental physicist and a role model to researchers in our department. She is a much valued and respected colleague and this recognition is richly deserved.’
Professor Herz joins fellow Rumford Medal laureates from the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford: Professor Tony Bell FRS (2024); Professor Raymond Pierrehumbert FRS (2022) and Professor Ian Walmsley CBE FRS (2018).