Team
Meet up with our vibrant, interdisciplinary, and multinational team!
Principal Investigator
Erkan Aydin
Short Bio
Dr. Erkan Aydın leads a research group at LMU Munich, focusing on the development of realistic, ultra-efficient photovoltaic technologies for both terrestrial and space applications. His work integrates materials innovation, interfacial engineering, and scalable processing to push the performance and stability limits of perovskite and perovskite-based tandem solar cells toward industrial implementation. Before joining LMU, Dr. Aydın conducted postdoctoral research at KAUST for seven and a half years, where he played a leading role in achieving several record-breaking perovskite–silicon tandem efficiencies and advancing their scalability and reliability. He earned his PhD from TOBB University of Economics and Technology in 2016 through the Micro and Nanotechnology Program. In 2022, Dr. Aydın received the prestigious ERC Starting Grant (INPERSPACE), and in 2025, he was recognized by Clarivate as one of the Highly Cited Researchers in the Cross-Field category—being among only 17 researchers from LMU Munich to receive this distinction.
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Contact
Adress: Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.029, 81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77805
Email: erkan.aydin@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Postdoctoral Fellows
Rik Hooijer
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: rik.hooijer@cup.uni-muenchen.de
2D/3D heterojunctions for efficient and stable multijunction solar cells
PhD Students
Jian Huang
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: jian.huang@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Ultra-efficient perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells
Pratik Kalvikatte
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.027
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77617
Email: pratik.kalvikatte@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Damage-free sputtering techniques for Ultra-efficient perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells
Cem Yilmaz
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: cem.yilmaz@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Thermomechanical analysis of multijunction solar cells
Hao Zhu
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone: +49 89 2180-77608
Email: hao.zhu@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Ultra-efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells
MSc Students
Alvar Martin Pelacho
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: alvar.martin@tum.de
Multiphysics Modeling of Thermal Cycling-Induced Stress and Failure in High-Efficiency Solar Cells for Low Earth Orbit Applications
(Joint student with Prof. Markus Zimmermann at TUM)
Visiting Students
Brooke Spraggon
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.027
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77617
Email: B.Spraggon1@newcastle.ac.uk
Noah Straughan
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.027
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77617
Email: 2775561S@student.gla.ac.uk
F-Praktikum Students
Boya Zhang
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.027
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77617
Email: Boya.Zhang@campus.lmu.de
Alumnis
Anna Backeberg
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: anna.backeberg@campus.lmu.de
Photoluminescence studies on FAPbI3-based solar cells (Jointly supervised by Aydin and Laquai Groups)
Formerly F-Praktiukm student, and now student at LMU Munich. Ann doing her next inernship at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz
Ali Buyruk
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: ali.buyruk@cup.lmu.de
High-efficieny perovskite-based solar cells with enhanced thermomechanical stability
Formerly a Postdoctoral Researcher in Aydin Group
David Helminger
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.027
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77617
Email: davhepc@cup.uni-muenchen.de
Wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells
Formerly a Visiting Student (Intern) in Aydin Group, and now Continuing to PhD at TUM in the goup of Roland A. Fischer
Shaoke Liu
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: Shaoke.Liu@campus.lmu.de
Self-assembled molecular monolayers
Formerly a F-Praktium Student in Aydin Group, and now Continuing to MSc at LMU
Tara Makoei
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: T.Bagherbeik@campus.lmu.de
Investigation of Thermal Stress Resilience in Perovskite Solar Cells
Now Tara continues at LMU Munich as student
Skirmantas Musteikis
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: skirmantas.musteikis@ktu.lt
Molecular design of charge transport materials for efficient Pb-Sn perovskite devices
Formerly a Visiting Student via Erasmus+ in Aydin Group, and now Continuing to MSc at Kaunas Uni. of Tech.
Kun Sun
Butenandtstr. 5 - 13
Room E3.005
81377 München
Phone +49 89 2180-77608
Email: kun.sun@ph.tum.de
In-situ GIWAXS analysis of 2D perovskites for extraterrestial use of solar cells
Formerly a visiting student in Aydin Group, and now postdoctoral researcher at HZB.