Photosynthetic Protein-Based Photovoltaics

Swee Ching Tan received his bachelor's degree in

Physics from the National University of Singapore

(NUS). He then worked for Hewlett Packard

Singapore and Ireland as a laser process and equipment

engineer to develop new technologies for silicon

micromachining. At Hewlett Packard, he made

two major contributions that helped the company to

achieve major cost-cutting goals and to increase the

throughput within his department. He was honored

with the Award for Outstanding Achievement for

these contributions to the company. He subsequently

gained PhD admission to the University of

Cambridge's Electrical Engineering Department

with scholarships from Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and the Wingate

Foundation. His PhD work, under the supervision of Professor Sir Mark Welland,

involved using photosynthetic proteins as light-absorbing materials for solar cells.

After completing his PhD, Dr. Tan moved to the Department of Materials Science

and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to become a postdoctoral

associate working on nanoelectronics. He is currently an assistant professor in

the Department of Materials Science and Engineering with NUS Faculty of

Engineering.

Dr. Tan's research interests span a wide range of areas in the fields of energy

and environmental sciences. The area of biohybrid photovoltaics is a core expertise

of his research lab with a number of new device architectures developed in recent

years. Dr. Tan's research group has achieved breakthrough energy-harvesting performances

using natural and engineered photoproteins. His research group is also

working on developing organic ionic conductors and work-function engineering for

applications in energy harvesting and photosensing electronic devices. Bridging the

spheres of energy and environment sciences, the research group is also focusing

on developing low-energy and low-cost air filtration and thermal comfort technologies.

By engineering super-hygroscopic materials and hierarchically structured solar

absorbers, the research team led by Dr. Tan aims to develop clean water technologies

that could generate potable water not only from seawater but also out of humid air.