Joey Luther is a senior research fellow within the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science directorate at NREL. He began his research career studying III-V light-emitting diodes and multijunction solar cells at North Carolina State University, and then moved to NREL during his graduate studies to study defects within various photovoltaic technologies. Under the direction of Arthur Nozik, while working on his doctorate through the Colorado School of Mines, he developed solar cells from colloidal nanocrystals, which exploit a phenomenon where multiple excitons are generated and harvested per incident photon. Luther then became a postdoctoral scholar in Paul Alivisatos’ group at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2009, he rejoined NREL as a senior research scientist.

Luther’s research interests focus on developing clean energy technologies through the frontiers of nanoscience and low-cost advanced processing. His research is funded by Basic Energy Sciences Energy Frontier Research Centers, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, the U.S. Department of Defense, strategic partnerships with industry, and NASA.

Education

B.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University

M.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado

Ph.D. Physics, Colorado School of Mines

Featured Work

Countdown to Perovskite Space Launch: Guidelines to Performing Relevant Radiation-Hardness Experiments, Joule (2022)

Assessing Health and Environmental Impacts of Solvents for Producing Perovskite Solar Cells, Nature Sustainability (2021)

Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity Enables a Room-Temperature Spin Light-Emitting Diode, Science (2021)

Tailored Interfaces of Unencapsulated Perovskite Solar Cells for >1,000 Hour Operational Stability, Nature Energy (2018)

Quantum Dot-Induced Phase Stabilization of α-CsPbI₃ Perovskite for High-Efficiency Photovoltaics, Science (2016) 

The Promise and Challenge of Nanostructured Solar Cells, Nature Nanotechnology (2014)

Localized Surface Plasmon Resonances Arising From Free Carriers in Doped Quantum Dots, Nature Materials (2011)

Peak External Photocurrent Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 100% via MEG in a Quantum Dot Solar Cell, Science (2011)

Synthesis of PbS Nanorods and Other Ionic Nanocrystals of Complex Morphology by Sequential Cation Exchange Reactions, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2009)

Schottky Solar Cells Based on Colloidal Nanocrystal Films, Nano Letters (2009)