René Janssen leads the interdepartmental research group Molecular Materials and Nanosystems at Eindhoven University of Technology, which is part of the departments Chemical Engineering and Chemistry as well as Applied Physics. The research objective of the group is to investigate and develop molecules, macromolecules and (nano)structured materials with tailored physical properties. The interest in these functional molecular materials and nanosystems is driven by the scientific challenge to understand the underlying mechanisms of the physical phenomena in systems of reduced dimensionality, down to the molecular level. Future applications are in organic and polymer solar cells, electrochemical cells, transistors and diodes. Janssen has in particular obtained a thorough understanding of the subtle interactions of light and the chemical and electrical structures at the nanoscale. This has led to major improvements in the efficiency of polymer solar cells. The group now works on multi-junction molecular solar-to-electricity conversion devices, to further improve efficiencies. Another focus in Janssen’s research is solar-to-fuel conversion using organic semiconductors in a process mimicking natural photosynthesis. To this aim new organic materials and electrocatalysts are being developed.

Maria Antonietta Loi studied physics at the University of Cagliari in Italy where she received the PhD in 2001. In the same year she joined the Linz Institute for Organic Solar cells, of the University of Linz, Austria as a postdoctoral fellow. Later she worked as researcher at the Institute for Nanostructured Materials of the Italian National Research Council in Bologna, Italy. In 2006 she became assistant professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She is now full professor in the same institution and chair of the Photophysics and OptoElectronics group.

She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles on photophysics and optoelectronics of different types of materials. In 2012 she has received an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council. She currently serves as deputy editor of Applied Physics Letters and she is member of the international advisory board of several international journals in physics and materials physics. In 2018 she received the Physicaprijs from the Dutch physics association for her outstanding work on organic-inorganic hybrid materials. In 2020 she became fellow of the American Physical Society.