Piotr Cegielski receives the JRF Dissertation Prize

In 2019, the Johannes Rau Research Foundation (JRF) has established the JRF Dissertation Prize. Endowed with €2000, the award promotes young talent within the JRF and the transfer of knowledge from university research into practice. The first to receive such a prize, in 2020, was Dr. Piotr Cegielski, for his pioneering PhD work on perovskite-based integrated lasers for silicon photonics.

Since the 2020-prize-awarding ceremony had to be postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cegielski received his prize on September 28, 2021, together with the 2021 awardee Dr. Jonas Moritz Ambrosy, from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Technology (IUTA). The prizes were awarded by the Chairman of the JRF Board of Trustees and member of regional parliament Karl Schultheis, during the JRF Annual Celebration in Düsseldorf. The ceremony was also attended by the minister of Culture and Science of North RhineWestphalia, Isabell Pfeiffer-Poensgen.

“When I started learning German some time ago, I have never thought that I will need it to present my work in front of the NRW minister of culture and science and members of the Landtag”, says Cegielski. “It is great to see my PhD work acknowledged in such way! The topic – integrated perovskite lasers- has still a lot of potential and I keep on working on it with my colleagues at AMO.”

In his PhD, Cegielski made important contributions to the field of integrated photonics, demonstrating both the first integrated perovskite-laser and the world’s smallest laser pump threshold in integrated silicon-compatible lasers.

“Integrated photonic-circuits could trigger the next technological revolution in microelectronics”, says AMO’s scientific director Prof. Max Lemme. “What is still missing is an integrable laser source. In his PhD thesis, Piotr has demonstrated that perovskites have a true potential to close this gap. Now the ambitious goal is to realize also an electrically pumped laser and/or to achieve continuous wave operation. These will be major breakthroughs that would revolutionize the field.”

“The work of Piotr reflects well our “Pathfinder” philosophy at AMO: to look at novel materials with an engineering perspective– perovskites in this case – and to demonstrate solutions for open technological problems”, adds Prof. Lemme. “We are very proud of his work and happy to have him still in the AMO team.”