Bruno Ehrler, Head of the Hybrid Solar Cell group at AMOLF in Amsterdam and Professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, has been awarded the KNCV Gouden Medaille (Gold Medal) by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Chemische Vereniging (KNCV, Royal Dutch Chemical Society). The award was presented during the NWO CHAINS 2025 conference in Veldhoven, The Netherlands, on December 2, 2025.

The KNCV Gold Medal is the most important Dutch chemistry prize and honors researchers up to forty years of age who have distinguished themselves in the field of chemical research in its broadest sense. Bruno Ehrler is recognized for his “outstanding contributions to the physical chemistry of metal halide perovskites and his pioneering research at the interface of materials science, optoelectronics, and sustainable energy. His work stands out for its originality, clarity of purpose, and clear relevance to major technological and societal challenges”.

 

Bruno Ehrler studied physics at RWTH Aachen, Grmany, and University of London, Queen Mary College, MSci University of London, UK, working on micro-mechanics with Professor David Dunstan. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, UK, under Professor Neil Greenham, focusing on hybrid solar cells from organic semiconductors and inorganic quantum dots in 2012. He carried out postdoctoral research with Professor Sir Richard Friend, working on quantum dots, doped metal oxides, and singlet fission photovoltaics, and later became a research fellow in the Optoelectronics Group at Cambridge University, UK.

In 2014, Bruno Ehrler moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to lead the Hybrid Solar Cells group at AMOLF. Since 2020, he has also been an honorary professor at the University of Groningen. In 2024, he was appointed head of the LMPV-Sustainable Energy Materials Department at AMOLF. His group investigates perovskite materials science, combining fundamental research with device applications.

Among other honors and grants, Bruno Ehrler has received an European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) Rising Star Award, and the American Chemical Society (ACS) Energy Lectureship Award. He is a member of the Young Academy of Europe, Vice-Chair of the Netherlands Energy Research Alliance, and Program Director of SolarLab, a national research program on solar energy.

 

Selected Publications

• Rituparno Chowdhury, Marco D. Preuss, Hwan-Hee Cho, Joshua J. P. Thompson, Samarpita Sen, Tomi K. Baikie, Pratyush Ghosh, Yorrick Boeije, Xian Wei Chua, Kai-Wei Chang, Erjuan Guo, Joost van der Tol, Bart W. L. van den Bersselaar, Andrea Taddeucci, Nicolas Daub, Daphne M. Dekker, Scott T. Keene, Ghislaine Vantomme Bruno Ehrler, Stefan C. J. Meskers, Akshay Rao, Bartomeu Monserrat, E. W. Meijer, Richard H. Friend, Circularly polarized electroluminescence from chiral supramolecular semiconductor thin films, Science 2025, 387, 6739, 1175-1181. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt3011
• Bruno Ehrler, Esther Alarcón-Lladó, Stefan W. Tabernig, Tom Veeken, Erik C. Garnett, Albert Polman, Photovoltaics Reaching for the Shockley–Queisser Limit, ACS Energy Lett. 2020, 5, 9, 3029–3033. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.0c01790
• Moritz H. Futscher, Ju Min Lee,a Lucie McGovern, Loreta A. Muscarella, Tianyi Wang, Muhammad Irfan Haider, Azhar Fakharuddin, Lukas Schmidt-Mende, Bruno Ehrler, Quantification of ion migration in CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite solar cells by transient capacitance measurements, Materials Horizones 2019. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9MH00445A
• Albert Polman, Mark Knight, Erik C. Garnett, Bruno Ehrler, Wim C. Sinke, Photovoltaic materials: Present efficiencies and future challenges, Science 2016, 352, 6283. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad4424
• Luis M. Pazos-Outón, Monika Szumilo, Robin Lamboll, Johannes M. Richter, Micaela Crespo-Quesada, Mojtaba Abdi-Jalebi, Harry J. Beeson, Milan Vrućinić, Mejd Alsari, Henry J. Snaith, Bruno Ehrler, Richard H. Friend, Felix Deschler, Photon recycling in lead iodide perovskite solar cells, Science 2016, 351, 6280, 1430-1433. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf1168
• Tianyi Wang, Benjamin Daiber, Jarvist M. Frost,b Sander A. Mann, Erik C. Garnett, Aron Walsh, Bruno Ehrler, Indirect to direct bandgap transition in methylammonium lead halide perovskite, Energy & Environmental Science 2016. https://doi.org/10.1039/C6EE03474H
• Maxim Tabachnyk, Bruno Ehrler, Simon Gélinas, Marcus L. Böhm, Brian J. Walker, Kevin P. Musselman, Neil C. Greenham, Richard H. Friend, Akshay Rao, Resonant energy transfer of triplet excitons from pentacene to PbSe nanocrystals, Nature Materials 2014, 13, 1033–1038. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4093
• Bruno Ehrler, Mark W. B. Wilson, Akshay Rao, Richard H. Friend, Neil C. Greenham, Singlet Exciton Fission-Sensitized Infrared Quantum Dot Solar Cells, Nano Lett. 2012, 12, 2, 1053–1057. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl204297u