 | Dr Hu's research focuses on advanced semiconductor nanomaterials and their integration into high-performance optoelectronic and electronic devices, including photodetectors, image sensors, memory devices, and photovoltaic systems. His work combines materials innovation, device-architecture design, and system integration. To date, he has published more than 135 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals, including Nature, Science, Nature Sustainability, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and ACS Energy Letters. His publications have received more than 10,000 citations, and he has an h-index of 59. He has also secured two prestigious research fellowships and an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, attracting more than AUD 2 million in research funding in Australia. Dr Hu pioneered hybrid structures that combine halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) with organic semiconductors, significantly improving charge extraction and environmental stability. The resulting flexible QD solar cells achieved a world-record power-conversion efficiency of 15.1% (Nature Communications, 2021, 12, 1). |
He was also among the first to establish how perovskite QD grain size influences device efficiency and photostability (ACS Energy Letters, 2021, 6, 1649-1658), and to compare composition tuning with quantum confinement as strategies for controlling the optoelectronic properties of halide perovskite QDs (ACS Energy Letters, 2024, 9, 3970-3981). By systematically correlating QD structure with optoelectronic properties, his team subsequently achieved a power-conversion efficiency exceeding 16.6% in perovskite QD solar cells (Advanced Science, 2026, 13, e22107).
Dr Hu has systematically engineered each functional layer in infrared PbS and PbSe QD solar cells. His work includes hybrid QD-graphene and Ag-doped PbS QD hole-transport layers; CdO and Mg-doped ZnO electron-transport layers; and ligand-based surface-defect engineering of PbS QD absorber layers. Together, these advances increased device efficiency from 7.2% to 13.3%, as reported in Advanced Functional Materials (2016, 12, 1899-1907; 2017, 46, 1703687), Nano Energy (2018, 46, 212-219), Journal of Materials Chemistry C (2019, 15, 4497-4502), Advanced Science (2020, 8, 2003138), and EES Solar(1, 1148-1159). In parallel, he and his group developed an ion-exchange strategy for passivating surface defects in PbSe QDs, together with synergistic interfacial layers that enhance charge extraction. These innovations delivered three successive world-record efficiencies for PbSe QD solar cells.
Dr Hu pioneered bifacial all-QD photodetectors through post-deposition ligand engineering. The devices achieved specific detectivities of 1.63 × 1011 Jones under ITO-side illumination and 1.86 × 1011 Jones under silver-nanowire-side illumination at 1370 nm (Advanced Functional Materials, 2025, 35, 2419316). Through cation exchange between QDs and bulk halide perovskites, his team also created hybrid semiconductor materials that function as wavelength-selective infrared photodetectors and high-efficiency solar cells (ACS Energy Letters, 2025, 10, 3508-3518). More recently, his group designed a heterojunction comprising a lead-free halide perovskite and a C60 layer that supports dual-mode, bidirectional synaptic behaviour: visible light induces potentiation, whereas near-infrared light induces depression. This wavelength-selective response arises from the combined effects of sub-bandgap absorption and interfacial carrier trapping and detrapping, providing an energy-efficient platform for robotic vision and all-optical neuromorphic perception (Science Advances, 2026, 12, eaeh3751).