Biography - Area(s) of Research
Tom Hopper is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Central Florida.
After completing a Masters degree in Chemistry at Newcastle University (2016), he became the first graduate student of Artem Bakulin at Imperial College London, which began with building a brand new femtosecond laser suite for the Chemistry department, and culminated in numerous awards for his thesis on ultrafast photophysics in organic, hybrid and nanoscale materials and devices. Following an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship in the same lab, Tom moved to Stanford University (2021) as a TomKat Postdoctoral Fellow in Sustainable Energy, continuing research into energy transport in emerging photovoltaics in the group of Aaron Lindenberg. Tom then joined SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2023) full time as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Photon Science. Working with Adi Natan and Kelly Gaffney, Tom developed pulse sequences to exert coherent control of photochemical structural and solvation dynamics, and image these processes with the world’s brightest X-rays at the LCLS free electron laser.
Since December 2024, Tom has led a research group at UCF, focusing on ultrafast laser control tools to advance the materials & device science of molecular and nanoscale systems for novel energy, optoelectronic and quantum technologies.
Publications
Thomas R. Hopper – Google Scholar
(15) Vonk, S. J. W.; Prins, P. T.; Wang, T.; Matthys, J.; Giordano, L.; Schiettecatte, P.; Mondal, N.; Geuchies, J. J.; Houtepen, A. J.; van der Hoeven, J. E. S.; Hopper, T. R.; Hens, Z.; Geiregat, P.; Bakulin, A. A.; Rabouw, F. T. Hot-Carrier Trapping Preserves High Quantum Yields but Limits Optical Gain in InP-Based Quantum Dots. Nat. Commun. 2025, 16 (1), 6249. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61511-9.
(14) Guzelturk, B.; Portner, J.; Ondry, J.; Ghanbarzadeh, S.; Tarantola, M.; Jeong, A.; Field, T.; Chandler, A. M.; Wieman, E.; Hopper, T. R.; Watkins, N. E.; Yu, J.; Cheng, X.; Lin, M.; Luo, D.; Kramer, P. L.; Shen, X.; Reid, A. H.; Borkiewicz, O.; Ruett, U.; Zhang, X.; Lindenberg, A. M.; Ma, J.; Schaller, R. D.; Talapin, D. V.; Cotts, B. L. Ultrafast Symmetry Control in Photoexcited Quantum Dots. Adv. Mater. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202414196.
(13) Wang, T.; Hopper, T. R.; Mondal, N.; Liu, S.; Yao, C.; Zheng, X.; Torrisi, F.; Bakulin, A. A. Hot Carrier Cooling and Trapping in Atomically Thin WS 2 Probed by Three-Pulse Femtosecond Spectroscopy. ACS Nano 2023, 17 (7), 6330–6340. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c10479.
(12) Carwithen, B. P.; Hopper, T. R.; Ge, Z.; Mondal, N.; Wang, T.; Mazlumian, R.; Zheng, X.; Krieg, F.; Montanarella, F.; Nedelcu, G.; Kroll, M.; Siguan, M. A.; Frost, J. M.; Leo, K.; Vaynzof, Y.; Bodnarchuk, M. I.; Kovalenko, M. V; Bakulin, A. A. Confinement and Exciton Binding Energy Effects on Hot Carrier Cooling in Lead Halide Perovskite Nanomaterials. ACS Nano 2023, 17 (7), 6638–6648. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c12373.
(11) Zheng, X.; Hopper, T. R.; Gorodetsky, A.; Maimaris, M.; Xu, W.; Martin, B. A. A.; Frost, J. M.; Bakulin, A. A. Multipulse Terahertz Spectroscopy Unveils Hot Polaron Photoconductivity Dynamics in Metal-Halide Perovskites. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12 (36), 8732–8739. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02102.
(10) Chen, Z.; Li, Z.; Hopper, T. R.; Bakulin, A. A.; Yip, H.-L. L. Materials, Photophysics and Device Engineering of Perovskite Light-Emitting Diodes. Reports Prog. Phys. 2021, 84 (4), 046401. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/abefba.
(9) Hopper, T. R.; Jeong, A.; Gorodetsky, A. A.; Krieg, F.; Bodnarchuk, M. I.; Huang, X.; Lovrincic, R.; Kovalenko, M. V.; Bakulin, A. A. Kinetic Modelling of Intraband Carrier Relaxation in Bulk and Nanocrystalline Lead-Halide Perovskites. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2020, 22 (31), 17605–17611. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0CP01599G.
(8) Hopper, T. R.; Gorodetsky, A.; Jeong, A.; Krieg, F.; Bodnarchuk, M. I.; Maimaris, M.; Chaplain, M.; Macdonald, T. J.; Huang, X.; Lovrincic, R.; Kovalenko, M. V.; Bakulin, A. A. Hot Carrier Dynamics in Perovskite Nanocrystal Solids: Role of the Cold Carriers, Nanoconfinement, and the Surface. Nano Lett. 2020, 20 (4), 2271–2278. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04491.
(7) Vezie, M. S.; Azzouzi, M.; Telford, A. M.; Hopper, T. R.; Sieval, A. B.; Hummelen, J. C.; Fallon, K.; Bronstein, H.; Kirchartz, T.; Bakulin, A. A.; Clarke, T. M.; Nelson, J. Impact of Marginal Exciton–Charge-Transfer State Offset on Charge Generation and Recombination in Polymer:Fullerene Solar Cells. ACS Energy Lett. 2019, 4 (9), 2096–2103. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b01368.
(6) Hopper, T. R.; Qian, D.; Yang, L.; Wang, X.; Zhou, K.; Kumar, R.; Ma, W.; He, C.; Hou, J.; Gao, F.; Bakulin, A. A. Control of Donor–Acceptor Photophysics through Structural Modification of a “Twisting” Push–Pull Molecule. Chem. Mater. 2019, 31 (17), 6860–6869. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b01278.
(5) Nübling, F.; Hopper, T. R.; Kuei, B.; Komber, H.; Untilova, V.; Schmidt, S. B.; Brinkmann, M.; Gomez, E. D.; Bakulin, A. A.; Sommer, M. Block Junction-Functionalized All-Conjugated Donor-Acceptor Block Copolymers. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11 (1), 1143–1155. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b18608.
(4) Zhang, J.; Kan, B.; Pearson, A. J.; Parnell, A. J.; Cooper, J. F. K. K.; Liu, X.-K. K.; Conaghan, P. J.; Hopper, T. R.; Wu, Y.; Wan, X.; Gao, F.; Greenham, N. C.; Bakulin, A. A.; Chen, Y.; Friend, R. H. Efficient Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells Employing Sequentially Deposited Donor-Acceptor Layers. J. Mater. Chem. A 2018, 6 (37), 18225–18233. https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ta06860g.
(3) Hopper, T. R.; Gorodetsky, A.; Frost, J. M.; Müller, C.; Lovrincic, R.; Bakulin, A. A. Ultrafast Intraband Spectroscopy of Hot-Carrier Cooling in Lead-Halide Perovskites. ACS Energy Lett. 2018, 3 (9), 2199–2205. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.8b01227.
(2) Qian, D.; Zheng, Z.; Yao, H.; Tress, W.; Hopper, T. R.; Chen, S. S. S. S. S.; Li, S.; Liu, J.; Chen, S. S. S. S. S.; Zhang, J.; Liu, X.-K. K.; Gao, B.; Ouyang, L.; Jin, Y.; Pozina, G.; Buyanova, I. A.; Chen, W. M.; Inganäs, O.; Coropceanu, V.; Bredas, J.-L. L.; Yan, H.; Hou, J.; Zhang, F.; Bakulin, A. A.; Gao, F. Design Rules for Minimizing Voltage Losses in High-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells. Nat. Mater. 2018, 17 (8), 703–709. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0128-z.
(1) Weu, A.; Hopper, T. R.; Lami, V.; Kreß, J. A.; Bakulin, A. A.; Vaynzof, Y. Field-Assisted Exciton Dissociation in Highly Efficient PffBT4T-2OD:Fullerene Organic Solar Cells. Chem. Mater. 2018, 30 (8), 2660–2667. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b00094.