Yimu Chen

Dr. Yimu Chen has made transformative impacts on single-crystal hybrid halide perovskites and can fundamentally accelerate the industrialization of this emerging class of semiconductor materials. 

Halide perovskites have received extensive attention because of their exceptional optoelectronic properties and device performance. While most studies focus on polycrystalline halide perovskites due to the fabrication simplicity, single-crystal halide perovskites hold a bright future in commercialization owing to the reduced defects, enhanced stability and reliability, and the potential to break the performance limit. Currently, single-crystal halide perovskite devices are becoming one of the most mainstream in the field. 

In the semiconductor industry, epitaxial growth is one of the main approaches to obtain high-quality single-crystal materials. The single-crystal epitaxial growth of complex compounds such as halide perovskite epitaxy is one of the most difficult topics in epitaxial growth technology.

Strain engineering has been one of the most successful and widely-used techniques in the semiconductor industry to boost the performance of semiconductor devices. While the novel semiconductor halide perovskites have been widely studied, controllable strain engineering of halide perovskites has not been systematically demonstrated due to the relatively weak interfacial interaction at the epitaxial interface. Dr. Chen achieved the first controllable strain engineering of the halide perovskites based on the epitaxial halide perovskite thin films, demonstrating the controllable strain engineering and the epitaxial stabilization effect in the epitaxial halide perovskites.

Dr. Chen has developed a novel fabrication method for high-performance single-crystal halide perovskite devices, including a transfer method of the single-crystal halide perovskite thin film for device integration. 

Solving the incompatibility between halide perovskites and semiconductor nano/microfabrication, Dr. Chen has demonstrated the first halide perovskite single-crystal micro-LEDs. Aiming at solving this incompatibility, he designs a dense polymer parylene-C protection layer as extra protection to the halide perovskite single crystals so that halide perovskite single crystals are free from the damage by moisture during the photolithography and the wet etching process.