Current Interests

James Blakesley joined NPL in 2012. His work focuses on organic electronics and photovoltaics. In particular, he is interested in techniques for detecting and modelling loss mechanisms and degradation in the new generation of organic photovoltaics, LEDs and thin-film circuits, with the ultimate aim of optimising device efficiency, stability, yield and reproducibility.

Biography

James obtained a BA and MSci from the University of Cambridge. After a brief period working as a trainee patent attorney, he returned to Cambridge to take up research. He received his PhD in 2005 for work on novel single-photon detectors in partnership with Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. Following that, he switched to studying organic semiconductors and completed postdoctoral projects in University College London and in Professor Neil Greenham's group in Cambridge. In 2009, he took up a fellowship with Professor Dieter Neher in Universität Potsdam, Germany, where his work focused on characterising and modelling recombination and charge transport in organic photovoltaics besides lecturing on organic semiconductors and photovoltaics. In 2012, he returned to the UK to work for NPL.

James is an active member of the scientific community. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers, given invited and contributed presentations at many international conferences, and is an active referee for scientific journals including Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Applied Physics Letters, Organic Electronics and the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Selected publications

• Relationship between energetic disorder and open-circuit voltage in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells
  J.C. Blakesley and D. Neher
  Physical Review B 84, 075210 (2011)
• Band Bending in Conjugated Polymer Layers
  I. Lange, J.C. Blakesley, J. Frisch, A. Vollmer, N. Koch and D. Neher
  Physical Review Letters 106, 216402 (2011)
• Photogeneration and Recombination in P3HT/PCBM Solar Cells Probed by Time-Delayed Collection Field Experiments
  J. Kniepert, M. Schubert, J.C. Blakesley and D. Neher
  Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2, 700 (2011)
• Solution-processed ultraviolet photodetedtors based on colloidal ZnO nanoparticles
  Y.Z. Jin, J.P. Wang, B.Q. Sun, J.C. Blakesley and N.C. Greenham
  Nano Letters 8, 1649 (2008)
• Efficient single photon detection by quantum dot resonant tunneling diodes
  J.C. Blakesley, P. See, A.J. Shields, B.E. Kardynał, P. Atkinson, I. Farrer and D.A. Ritchie
  Physical Review Letters 94, 067401 (2005)

Contact details

E-mail: james.blakesley@npl.co.uk
Tel: 020 8943 6179