Portrait of Jenny Nelson

Portrait of Jenny Nelson, surrounded by a group of her PhD students, at the Physics Department of Imperial College London.

Professor Jenny Nelson, physicist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014. Her research is devoted to characterising the materials used to build and improve photovoltaic devices, which convert energy from the Sun into electricity. Over the last twenty-five years, Jenny has worked with many types of energy converting materials, ranging from molecular materials to inorganic materials such as nanocrystalline oxides, and organic–inorganic hybrids. She uses information describing the electronic, optical and structural properties of these materials to inform the design of her devices, an approach that has garnered strong interest from industry.

In 2012 she was awarded the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers' Company Prize, 'For her theoretical insight into the many factors affecting the fabrication and performance of organic photovoltaics, which has led to the rational design of these devices and related photodetectors based on organic semiconductors.'