Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) announced on the 8th that Seok Sang-il, a special invited professor in the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering, has received the Humboldt Research Award.
The Humboldt Research Award is given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and is awarded to scholars who have achieved outstanding research results internationally. This year's awardee receives 80,000 euros (about 126 million won).
Professor Seok is a pioneer in the field of high-efficiency perovskite Taeyang cells. He developed the world’s first 'organic-free hybrid heterojunction solar cell using perovskite,' and this technology has become essential for the manufacturing of high-efficiency perovskite Taeyang cells.
Professor Seok has published over 10 papers exclusively in Nature and Science. In particular, he has been listed as one of the 'top 1% researchers (HCR)' by the global academic information company Clarivate based on the citation counts of research papers for six consecutive years since 2018.
He is also leading the commercialization of perovskite Taeyang cells by founding Frontier Energy Solutions (FES) with fellow professors. Recently, he and a research team from Germany developed machine learning-based technologies to enhance the efficiency of perovskite Taeyang cells and published the results in Science.
Professor Seok noted, 'I plan to conduct visiting research with the Humboldt award. I received an invitation from Friedrich Alexander University in Germany, where I engaged in collaborative research,' adding, 'I hope this research contributes to the advancement of next-generation energy technologies.'