Kingsley Egbo joined NREL's Materials Science Center in November 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Discovery and Design group. At NREL, Kingsley is investigating novel ultrawide bandgap oxide materials for potential applications in optoelectronics, power electronics, and energy. His work focuses on the growth of these materials using physical vapour deposition techniques, their characterization and device processing. Prior to joining NREL, Kingsley worked on molecular beam epitaxy of oxide thin films at Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics, Berlin. He is interested in nanoscale engineering of semiconductor thin films and heterostructures towards developing new device-inspiring materials that combine unique properties and using several techniques to study these properties.

Kingsley completed his bachelor’s degree at Federal University of Technology, Owerri, and master’s degree at Newcastle University. He obtained a doctorate in 2021 from City University of Hong Kong where he worked in the group of Professor Kin Man Yu using band structure engineering and doping to tune optical, electrical, and electronic properties of semiconductor materials.

For more information, see Kingsley Egbo’s LinkedIn profile.

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed on LinkedIn are the author’s own, made in the author's individual capacity, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NREL.   

Research Interests

Transparent conductors

Ultrawide bandgap semiconductors

Thin-film epitaxy and materials characterization

Semiconductor device physics 

Education

Ph.D., Physics, City University of Hong Kong

MSc., Renewable Energy, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne

BSc., Applied Physics, Federal University of Technology, Owerri

Professional Experience

Postdoctoral Scientist, Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik (2021–2022)

Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant, City University of Hong Kong (2017–2021)

Graduate Assistant, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (2014–2016)

Associations and Memberships

Member, Materials Research Society

Member, Energy Institute

Featured Work

Optoelectronic Properties and Ultrafast Carrier Dynamics of Copper Iodide Thin Films, Nature communications (2022) 
 
SnO/β-Ga₂O₃ Heterojunction Field-Effect Transistors and Vertical p-n Diodes, Applied Physics Letters (2022) 
 
Effect of Free Carriers on the Optical Properties of High Mobility Transition Metal Doped In₂O₃ Transparent Conductors, Physical Review Materials (2021) 
 
Band Alignment of Wide Bandgap NiO/MoO₃ and NiO/WO₃ p-n Heterojunctions Studied by High Resolution X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Journal of Alloys and Compounds (2021) 
 
Two-Step Chemical Vapor Deposition-Synthesized Lead-Free All Inorganic Cs₃Sb₂Br₉ Perovskite Microplates for Optoelectronic Applications, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (2021) 
 
Efficient p-Type Doping of Sputter-Deposited NiO Thin Films with Li, Ag, and Cu Acceptors, Physical Review Materials (2020) 
 
Vacancy Defects Induced Changes in the Electronic and Optical Propertied of NiO Studied by Spectroscopic Ellipsometry and First-Principles Calculations, Journal of Applied Physics (2020) 
 
Controlling the p-Type Conductivity and Composition Range for Bipolar Conduction in Ni_xCd_1-xO Alloys by Acceptor Doping, Journal of Physical Chemistry C (2020) 
 
Rapid Thermal Annealing Assisted Facile Solution Method for Tungsten-Doped Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films on Glass Substrate, Journal of Alloys and Compounds (2020) 
 
Wide-Gap Zn_1-xNi_xO Alloy: A Transparent p-Type Oxide, Physical Review Applied (2020) 

Awards and Honors

Research Tuition Scholarship, City University of Hong Kong (2019)

Outstanding Academic Performance Award, City University of Hong Kong (2018)

Hong Kong PhD Fellowship (2017–2020)

Chow Yei Ching SGS Entrance Scholarship, City University of Hong Kong (2017)

Commonwealth Masters Scholarship, United Kingdom (2016)

Early Career Grant, CODATA/RDA (2016)

Travel Grant, International Centre for Theoretical Physics (2014)