POLIMA strengthens its participation in SOLEN Elite Center
Welcome to Catarina Ferreira who recently started her post-doc in collaboration with SOLEN Elite Center on Solar Energy Conversion and Storage
Catarina Ferreira has a solid background in Physics and Photonics, strongly focused on the use of photonics for the optimization of solar energy conversion devices. She completed her BSc degree in Physics and her MSc degree in Applied Physics at the University of Minho, where she first got in touch with scientific research, integrated into the Electroactive Smart Materials Group led by Professor Senentxu Lanceros-Mendez.
She then moved to the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona (ICFO) to pursue her PhD degree in Photonics in the Organic Nanostructured Photovoltaics group, supervised by Professor Jordi Martorell. During that time, she acquired strong expertise both in the fabrication of photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical devices of reasonable complexity, but also in the theoretical simulation and optimization of light propagation inside those particular devices. She also had the chance to actively participate in an EU-funded project (LICROX) for the light-assisted production of solar fuels, where she collaborated with researchers from different European institutions. She got her PhD diploma in September 2023.
Since October 2023, Catarina joined POLIMA as a post-doctoral researcher, as a part of the recent interdisciplinary SDU SOLEN Elite Center on Solar Energy Conversion and Storage. During her post-doc, she will make use of the previously acquired broad knowledge on solar energy conversion devices and combine it with the light-matter interaction studies performed at POLIMA, to help bringing forward the understanding and development of photovoltaic cells and energy storage devices. This will also be done in collaboration with other research centers, institutes and faculties at SDU, making use of the strongly cross-disciplinary nature of the SOLEN elite center.
