Professor Ravi Silva, eminent academic from the University of Surrey in UK made an academic visit to DICP on the 22nd of November, 2019. During his visit, Prof. Silva gave two presentations that were held in the conference room on the third floor of the State Key Laboratory of Catalysis building. The first presentation, entitled "Solar power for a cleaner future: Transitioning to a free" was about novel technologies using 4G (4th Generation) solar cells that include perovskites and flexible organic electronics. The talk also touched on the very real possibility of having free energy in the near future. The second presentation, entitled "Nanoscale design of nano-carbons for electronics" examined the latest design of carbon based electronic technologies, with a view to optimize their performances beyond traditional limits. Such technologies can have a wide range of applications such as in high performance X-ray detectors, opto-electronic devices and flexible wearables. Both presentations were chaired by Prof. Jian Liu, the team leader of Micro and Nano Reactor and Reaction Engineering Science group (group 05T7) from DICP.
During his stay, Prof. Silva had the opportunity to visit various research groups and laboratories at DICP, including Prof. Can Li's laboratory for photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen. Prof. Silva also generously made himself available to share his wisdom and experience with PhD and Postdoctoral students regarding their research enquiries.
Professor Ravi Silva is a Surrey Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) at the University of Surrey in UK. He heads the Nano-Electronics Centre (NEC). Prof. Silva conducted his studies at Cambridge University. He has given over 600 presentations at international conferences and published over 580 articles in journals including Nature, Science, Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, Nanoletters and many others. He is the inventor of 30 patents and two start-up companies. He has won many national and international awards for his research and he is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka.
