University of Groningen
PbS colloidal quantum dots for near-infrared optoelectronics
Bederak, Dima
DOI:
10.33612/diss.172171198
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Publication date: 2021
Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database
Citation for published version (APA):
Bederak, D. (2021). PbS colloidal quantum dots for near-infrared optoelectronics. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.172171198
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Acknowledgements
This chapter completes this thesis, and the thesis concludes a long and important part of my life. Here, I want to acknowledge the people whom I met during this journey and who made it possible.
First of all, I am grateful to Maria Antonietta Loi for letting me join the Photophysics and OptoElectronics group as a PhD student. According to the initial plan, I would be doing a project on photocatalytic water splitting and the title of my thesis was supposed to be completely different to what it is now. I spent a lot of time fabricating photoelectrodes from quantum dot blends, trying to stabilize the electrode and improve its efficiency and lifetime. Despite all the progress, it was necessary to make a tough decision: to close the project and start another one. Looking backwards, I am really happy that this change has occurred. Thank you for guiding me during all these years and for all the personal and professional support. Your feedback on my manuscripts always brought the quality and clarity of it to another level. I greatly appreciate your availability despite a crazy schedule and a large number of supervised students and other academic tasks.
I also want to thank Jan Anton Koster for being my second supervisor and for all the support and interesting discussions which we had during these years. I would like to recognise the members of the assessment committee prof. Bruno Ehrler, prof. George Palasantzas and prof. René Janssen for careful reading and evaluation of my thesis.
The work in this thesis required high-quality colloidal quantum dots. Thanks to prof. Maksym Kovalenko, Dmitry Dirin and Loredana Protesescu for providing materials and discussions of the results. It was always helpful to have a second opinion from a different angle on the experimental data. Loredana, I am grateful for teaching me how to make quantum dots. It was a great experience and helped me to understand the synthetic procedures. Kush, Suhas and Kim, thanks for your help in the lab and for sharing your fume hood for my reactions.
I am also thankful to prof. Wolfgang Heiss, Mykhailo Sytnyk and Niall Killilea for teaching me how to make inks and supplying large batches of materials. The visit to your lab was a true turning point in my PhD project. I want to extend my appreciation to Ievgen Levchuk and Liudmyla Chepyga. I deeply appreciate your warm welcome in Erlangen and it was nice to meet you at the conference in Groningen.
Prof. Giuseppe Portale, thank you for explaining how to perform SAXS measurements of the inks and the data analysis. Jamo, it was so nice to learn how to operate TEM. We spent quite some time on the data acquiring and analysis for the S-rich paper. Musty, Simon and
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Herman, your valuable help with the PL setup helped to shine the light on my quantum dot samples. Artem, after the beginning of our work together, my life got a turn towards an interesting journey. For example, I never thought that I would work on LEFETs or our other projects a few years ago. It is nice to work with you and there is always something special going on when you are in the lab.
Arjen and Teo, I appreciate all the work done on making the experiments possible by keeping the labs running. You also made the atmosphere during the lunchtimes and group meetings much more entertaining. Teo, I want to thank you specifically for the proofreading of my introduction chapter. Renate, you always knew the answer or someone who knows the answer to my questions. I also want to acknowledge Reinder, Rick and Bouke for solving the problems in the “cleanroom upstairs” and Tom, Johan, Hans and Jordi for helping to keep the ALD machine in good condition.
Jacky, Jake and Evgenios, you were such enthusiastic and hard-working students. It was a pleasure to work with you. Chris, I did not supervise you, but we worked closely for about a year. You were so passionate about the research on quantum dots, that I was always curious how many of them you carry on your clothes and smartphone.
I was happy to share my office with Bart, Wytse, Martha, Jorge and Vlad. We had many enjoyable talks and jokes during these years. Hope to keep in touch with you in the future. The same goes for all the current and past members of the Photophysics & OptoElectronics group: Widi, Mark, Lai-Hung, Insan, Daniel, Luna, Hong-Hua, Sampson, Davide, Karolina, Eelco, Matteo, Shuyan, Jun, Lorenzo, Jacopo, Vincent, Marten, Solmaz, Tejas, Nutifafa, Jian, and Azi. It is difficult to put all the nice moments in writing, so I hope that you remember them as well and that there will be many occasions in future to see each other more often. Jane, Sylvia, Viktor, Yanxi and Xinkai, we had quite many nice small talks and your assistance in searching for numerous chemicals was helpful. Many thanks to Natasha and Vincent for being my paranymphs. Special thanks to Vincent for translating my summary and proofreading and Natasha for the endless support and friendship during all these years.
I also want to thank my friends outside the POE group: Misha, Kostya, Anya, Sasha, Sergei, Masha, Sergiy, Katia, Leo, Zhenia, Andrey, and Evgeniya.
And finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all my family members and relatives. It would be difficult or maybe impossible to accomplish all of this without you. Thanks for all your support, faith, mild pushes towards graduation and for being an example for me. You are the best!
