My research work is truly multidisciplinary, spanning materials physics, chemistry, and laser spectroscopy. My current focus is to understand the fundamental principles of charge transport phenomena in low-dimensional nanomaterials and interfaces, which are essential in quantum electronics, energy harvesting, and storage applications. By doing so, our goal is to provide valuable insights into the electrical properties of quantum materials and optimize the efficiency of energy harvesting and storage devices, such as photochemical cells, photovoltaics, and batteries. This will contribute to the ongoing energy transition towards a more sustainable society.

Complementary to conventional electrical transport studies, we employ a contact-free, purely optical approach to investigate the dynamics of transient (photo)conductivity to understand microscopic charge transport mechanisms. For that, we developed and employed state-of-the-art, primarily terahertz-based, ultrafast spectroscopies. THz photons possess an extremely small amount of photon energy (on the order of meV), enabling them to interact strongly with and be absorbed by free charge carriers. THz spectroscopy provides not only microscopic transport information (e.g., short-range charge carrier mobility) but also sub-picosecond time resolution (1 picosecond = 0.000000000001 second) to capture, for example, how charge carriers are “scattered” or “dressed” by the lattice and how charge carriers flow across hybrid interfaces following light absorption. Besides understanding electron transport effects, I am fascinated by ion transport phenomena and many-body ion interactions in nanoscale ion channels. The main question we aim to address is the relationship between confined ion phases and the nonlinear ion transport phenomena at the nanoscale.

If you are interested in learning more about my research or working together, please feel free to contact me via email at h.wang5@uu.nl or visit my office in room 2.63 at Ornsteinlaboratorium.