Overview

Hybrid organic-inorganic materials offer a unique opportunity for the discovery and refinement of new functional semiconductor materials with fine-tuned properties, controlled at the atomic scale by organic chemistry and organic-inorganic synthesis and processing. The HybriD3 project accelerates the Design, Discovery and Dissemination of new crystalline organic-inorganic hybrid semiconductors in a collaborative effort between six teams of researchers located at three major universities in the Research Triangle: Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

In their research, the team concentrates their effort on identifying new organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, aiming, for example, to identify new materials for light-emitting diodes that will enable researchers to address energy-efficient lighting and cost-effective manufacturing techniques. The project also provides an open, community-focused database of existing, predicted and newly synthesized organic-inorganic hybrid materials, facilitating accelerated development of this materials space among the wider community of researchers interested in exploring the hybrid perovskite materials class. 

The project was originally funded as a collaborative research project (2017-2021, extended to 2023) through NSF's DMREF program. Work on the HybriD3 materials database continues (see below).

Two new DMREF award involving members of the original team were funded in 2023 and will continue until 2027. Gundogdu, Blum, Kanai, and So continue to work on superfluorescence in hybrid perovskites. The work on the HybriD3 materials database also still continues under this award. Mitzi is part of a team focused on data-driven predictions of hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor structures.

Regarding data dissemination, the team has been fortunate to be supported by a collaboration with SpringerMaterials, which will make data from the open HybriD3 database available in their collection as well. The open HybriD3 database and the more general MatD3 software underneath continue to be actively developed and maintained.