Denis Fichou

Biography

Dr. Denis Fichou is a Research Director at CNRS (1st class) and a Professor at NTU, Singapore. He is the current Head of the Organic Nanostructures and Semiconductors laboratory that he founded in 2001 at Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris, France. From 2005 to 2015, D. Fichou has been a Visiting Professor at NTU including a Tcheng Tsang Man Chair at the School of Material Science & Engineering in 2005-2008. He is now at the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences where he setup a research lab to develop novel organic and hybrid solar cells. In the late 80s D. Fichou has pioneered organic electronics. In particular he is the co-inventor of the first organic transistor on a flexible substrate (Adv Mater 1990). Since then, he has been developing organic semiconductors and devices, in particular the oligothiophenes family. Today his research is oriented towards the design of organic and hybrid photovoltaic solar cells as well as new oxide-based photoelectrochemical systems for water splitting and energy storage. He has published more than 190 articles in international journals such as Nature, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, JACS, etc. Besides, he is the holder of 10 patents and the editor and author of several books including the successful Handbook of Oligo & Polythiophenes (Wiley-VCH, over 2.260 citations). Finally, his publications in academic journals have received a total of over 10.220 citations (H-index=43).

Research Interest

"Our present research aims at conceiving novel materials, either organic or inorganic in nature, in view of energy applications such as sunlight conversion and storage. 1. Organic and hybrid photovoltaic cells We design and synthetize novel small organic molecules having an extended pi-electron system and use them either as active materials (p- or n-type semiconductors) or as interfacial layers in thin film solar cells. We recently developed series of molecules such as for example dipyrranylidenes and organo-cobalt complexes, that we used to fabricate efficient photovoltaic solar cells. 2. Oxide-based photoelectrochemical systems We aim at converting efficiently sunlight into clean and readily usable fuels such as hydrogen or methane on a large scale. One of the most promising technologies consists in splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen through solar irradiation of semiconductor-based devices. We recently designed various efficient PEC systems based on either WO3, Cu2O, or BiVO4 among others, and used them under sunlight illumination to produce hydrogen. 3. Supramolecular self-assemblies on surfaces The self-assembly of organic molecules on solid surfaces provides a versatile route towards functional 2D arrays in view of energy, catalytic and magnetic applications. Our group develops unique supramolecular architectures by controlling the size and shape of the molecular bricks. We then observe and manipulate the assemblies at the atomic/molecular scale by means of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)."