Robert Hoye

Robert Hoye is an Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford and holds an Honorary Senior Lecturer position at Imperial College London's Department of Materials. He is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and an honorary Fellow of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN). His affiliations include the Functional Materials Theme at Imperial and the Sir Henry Royce Institute. Hoye leads the Energy Materials & Devices Group, focusing on defect-tolerant semiconductors, perovskite-inspired materials, and scalable thin film manufacturing for clean energy applications such as photovoltaics, LEDs, and solar fuels.

• Education:
  • BE(Hons) in Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland (2011)
  • PhD in Materials Science, University of Cambridge (2014)

His research interests span the development of materials with inherent defect tolerance, advanced device engineering (including solar cells and photodetectors), and applying novel characterization techniques to optimize optoelectronic performance. He has pioneered studies on cuprous oxide and bismuth oxyiodide (BiOI) solar absorbers, achieving record efficiencies and stability. Hoye’s work emphasizes bridging fundamental material science with scalable manufacturing processes, such as atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition.

Notable awards include the Young Engineer of the Year Prize, Rosenhain Medal and Prize, and a European Research Council Starting Grant (1.5M Euros) for sustainable energy innovation. His grants and fellowships have enabled independent research leadership at both Cambridge and Imperial, with ongoing collaboration across institutions.

• Labs & Teams:
  • Energy Materials & Devices Group (Imperial College London)
  • Contributions to the Sir Henry Royce Institute’s materials innovation initiatives