He Yan

Biography Dr. He Yan (Henry) obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University with Professor Tobin Marks. After that, Dr. Yan spent most of his research career at Polyera Corporation, a leading research company in the Organic Electronics industry. In 2009, Dr. Yan and his team published the first high-mobility n-type semiconducting polymer in Nature and the work was referred to as the "new transistor age" on the cover page of Nature. As recognition of this achievement, Dr. Yan was invited to receive the IdTechEx Printed Electronics "Best Organic Material" award in Dresden, Germany in 2010. After joining the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2012, Dr. Yan’s group achieved single-junction organic solar cells (OSCs) with a record-efficiency of 11.5%, which was officially certified and noted in the renowned NREL “Best Research-Cell Efficiency” chart, marking the first time a Hong Kong research institution appearing on this chart. The most recent achievement by Dr. Yan’s group was the demonstration of a non-fullerene OSC that exhibits nearly zero charge separation driving force yet that achieve ultra-fast and efficient charge separation (Nature Energy, 2016, 1, 16089). This breakthrough shows that it is possible to develop OSCs with low voltage loss and thus efficiencies near 20%.