Jan Anton Koster obtained his PhD at the University of Groningen in 2007. After his PhD, Jan Anton Koster worked as a postdoc at the universities of Cambridge and Eindhoven. After having obtained a Veni grant for organic solar cell modelling, he moved back to Groningen to continue his work on organic semiconductors. In 2013 he was appointed as an assistant professor (tenure-track) at the university of Groningen. As of 2022 his is employed as full professor of novel semiconductors and devices. Currently, his main research interests include hybrid perovskite solar cells, organic solar cells and organic thermoelectrics. His research is supported by a Vidi grant from STW (2014) and a number of other national and European grants.

Three Top Publications 2017-2022:

1) J. Liu, B. van der Zee, R. Alessandri, S. Sami, J. Dong, M.I. Nugraha, A.J. Barker, S. Rousseva, L. Qiu, X. Qiu, N. Klasen, R.C. Chiechi, D. Baran, M. Caironi, G. Portale, R.W. A. Havenith, S.J. Marrink, J.C. Hummelen, and L.J.A. Koster,  N-type organic thermoelectrics: demonstration of ZT > 0.3, Nature Comm. 11, 5694 (2020). DOI:10.1038/s41467-020-19537-8.

In this recent paper, we report the best figure of merit ZT = 0.34 among all reported single-host n-type organic thermoelectric materials. We achieved this record result by utilising the phonon-glass electron-crystal concept, which has remained elusive even in inorganic thermoelectrics. 76 citations.

2) T.S. Sherkar, C. Momblona, L. Gil-Escrig, J. Ávila, M. Sessolo, H. Bolink, and L.J.A. Koster, Recombination in Perovskite Solar Cells: Significance of Grain Boundaries, Interface Traps and Defect Ions, ACS Energy Lett. 2, 1214 (2017). DOI:10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00236.

This paper shows that trap-assisted recombination at grain boundaries is the dominant recombination mechanism in perovskite solar cells. Shortly after publication, it was listed as one of the five most-read articles of this journal. This article is one of the top 10 Most-Cited ACS Energy Letters articles published in 2017-2018 748 citations.

3) V.M. Le Corre, E.A. Duijnstee, O.  El Tambouli, J.M. Ball, H.J. Snaith, J. Lim, and L.J.A. Koster, Revealing Charge Carrier Mobility and Defect Densities in Metal Halide Perovskites via Space-Charge-Limited Current Measurements, ACS Energy Lett. 6, 1087 (2021).

The space-charge-limited current (SCLC) measurement technique is used in a number of very influential papers to study the transport and trapping in perovskite crystals and thin films. However, the ionic nature of perovskites makes the application of SCLC measurements prone to errors. We show how to correctly perform and interpret space-charge-limited-current measurements on perovskites. Listed in ACS Energy Letters most read articles of the month (April 2021). 97 citations