Sophia completed her PhD in Chemistry at the end of 2014 under the guidance Prof. Arie Zaban at Bar-Ilan University. The first part of her doctoral research was to build a new design of DSSC, which combines the benefits of QDs, in terms of their broad absorption spectrum, with the evolved charge transfer mechanism of DSSC. In this design, QDs serve as "antennas," funneling absorbed energy to nearby dye molecules via Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET). The use of this novel design enabled her to overcome the low light absorption of the dye monolayer in DSSCs and opened new opportunities for the expansion of the spectral window in QDSSCs. The second part was to increase the efficiency of QDSSCs. She proposed a unique strategy for smart photon management which opened a new path for the fabrication of highly efficient QDSSCs. Sophia demonstrated that by using the PID concept it is possible to increase the open circuit voltage of a solar cell by more than 100mV.

 

Following post-doctoral research in organic chemistry at the Weizmann Institute, Sophia, with the assistance of her Ruth Arnon Fellowship, joined the Orenstein Lab of the Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.