Latest News

Three PDI scientists have secured two of the nine projects funded under the DFG Priority Programme Nitrides4Future (SPP 2477). These awards highlight PDI’s leading role in nitride semiconductor research and device innovation.

Today, on United Nations International Equal Pay Day, we take a moment to reflect on fairness and equality in the workplace.

A new study overturns a key assumption in solar cell design: that triplet excitons are always bad news. Researchers have discovered that, under the right conditions, these excited states don’t necessarily lead to large voltage losses—offering fresh insight into how organic solar cells can be made even more efficient.

The ZALKAL Application Lab team will be active at two major events this autumn, showcasing their expertise in ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors. Find out more about our participation at the IWUMD in Wrocław, and take the opportunity to visit PDI's labs as part of Photonics Days 2025 in October.

In June, researchers from Zurich Instruments joined us at PDI for two days of joint experiments, bringing one of their advanced signal generators to our labs for testing. Together, we explored how acoustic waves can be harnessed in hybrid quantum devices—first by generating complex surface patterns such as acoustic vortices, and then by probing the coupling between microwave and optical photons mediated by acoustic fields. These experiments showcase both the versatility of acoustics in quantum research and the value of close collaboration between instrument developers and fundamental science.

Congratulations to Wenshan Chen, who successfully defended her dissertation, (Ge,Sn)O2-based Ultra-wide Bandgap Semiconductor Thin Films for Power Electronics” on August 1st, 2025 at TU Berlin and PDI, under the supervision of Oliver Bierwagen.

In a recent open-access study published in Nano Express, a team from PDI presented a detailed analysis of energy use in their molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) facility and outlined practical steps taken to reduce it—ranging from operational adjustments to targeted equipment upgrades. Their findings offer valuable insights for other laboratories seeking to improve sustainability without compromising research performance.

PDI has announced a collaboration with scientific technology company Bizmuth MBE Ltd. to integrate intelligent automation into the growth of semiconductor materials. The six-month partnership, running from June to December 2025, is one of the first initiatives in Europe to apply large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AI to the autonomous control of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

A new study by researchers at the Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik (PDI), published in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, demonstrates a major advancement in the growth of high-quality indium gallium nitride (InₓGa₁₋ₓN) layers using plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

PDI researchers are out in force this summer, sharing their latest findings at conferences and workshops around the world. This is where you can meet them in June and July 2025.