Susanna Thon

Johns Hopkins University

Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Susanna M. Thon is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. She studies nanomaterials engineering for optoelectronic devices, with a focus on solar energy conversion and sensing. Her work applies techniques from nanophotonics and scalable fabrication to produce devices and materials with novel optical and electrical functionality. Thon’s team is currently working on a number of projects, including ways to use nanostructured materials, such as colloidal quantum dots, two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides, and plasmonic metal nanoparticles, to build multicolored, transparent, and next-generation devices. Insights from Thon’s research on photovoltaics are helping to push the boundaries of efficiency and cost-effectiveness through the use of flexible platforms and new materials. As examples, Thon and her colleagues recently developed a flexible and transparent lens array enhancer for solar cells, as well as new high throughput characterization methods that can automatically identify performance-killing defects in solar cells. Thon’s work has received funding from the American Chemical Society, National Science Foundation, Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, Cohen Translational Engineering Fund, and the U.S. Army. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and Johns Hopkins’ Catalyst and Discovery awards. More than 45 of her research papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Thon recently served as chair of Optica’s Optics for Energy Technical Group. She isa member of the American Association of University Professors, American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, Association for Women in Science, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Materials Research Society. She received her bachelor’s degree from MIT in 2005 and her master’s and Ph.D. (all in Physics) from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins in 2013, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow.

Sessions With Susanna Thon

Thursday, 10 March

  • 12:30pm - 01:10pm (CST) / 10/mar/2022 06:30 pm - 10/mar/2022 07:10 pm

    Next-gen Solar: Technologies to get to the next level
    Innovation & Technology

    The pace of solar innovation continues to increase rapidly despite the growing ubiquity of the technology. Leading market players and new entrants continue to push the boundaries of increasing energy yields and maintaining the high quality standards of solar systems. The adoption of next-generation solar technology by all customers, from homeowners to solar developers, will bring solar generation increasingly into the mainstream. What are some of the next-generation technologies that will enable solar to leap into the mainstream? Which solar technology challenges need to be overcome to accelerate its adoption globally?

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