PhD (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) (Dec 2013 – May 2017) (Thesis title: Fabrication of photonic nanostructures for light harvesting in solar cells)

BSc (Hons) in Physics (First Class – OGPA: 3.85/4.00) (University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka) (Mar 2007 – Oct 2011)

Academic and Research Experience

Senior Lecturer Gr-II, Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka (Dec 2021 – To date)

Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for Advanced Photovoltaics, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic (Oct 2017 – Nov 2021)

Research Assistant, Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand (Jun 2017 – Aug 2017)

Teaching Assistant: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand (Feb 2015 – Nov 2016)

Lecturer (Temporary), Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka (Oct 2012 – Nov 2013)

Demonstrator: Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka (Nov 2011 – Sep 2012)

Book chapters

1. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi , “Nanopyramid Structures with Light Harvesting and Self-Cleaning Properties for Solar Cells” In: Emerging Solar Energy Materials, InTech 2018,25-44, ISBN: 978-1-78923-583-8, Print ISBN: 978-1-78923-582-1.
2. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Fabrication and Replication of Periodic Nanopyramid Structures by Laser Interference Lithography and UV Nanoimprint Lithography for Solar Cells Applications” In: Micro/Nanolithography – A Heuristic Aspect on the Enduring Technology, InTech 2018, 13-41, ISBN: 978-1-78923-031-4, Print ISBN: 978-1-78923-030-7.

Research publications in SCI indexed journals

1. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Katarína Ridzoňová, Lukáš Horák, Pavla Bauerová, Jakub Holovský. “Unveiling the Effect of Potassium Treatment on the Mesoporous TiO2/ Perovskite Interface in Perovskite Solar Cells.” ACS Applied Energy Materials 4, 10(2021), 11488-11495.
2. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Zdeňka Hájková, Lukáš Horák, Martin Ledinsky, and Jakub Holovský. “Controlled Growth of Large Grains in CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite Films Mediated by an Intermediate Liquid Phase without an Antisolvent for Efficient Solar Cells.” ACS Applied Energy Materials 3, 12(2020), 12484–12493.
3. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Teodor Huminiuc, Lukáš Horák, Brianna Conrad, Tomas Polcar, and Jakub Holovský. “Elucidating the role of TiCl4 post-treatment on percolation of TiO2 electron transport layer in perovskite solar cells.” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics53, no. 38 (2020): 385501.
4. Brianna Conrad, Luca Antognini, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Mathieu Boccard, and Jakub Holovský. “Illumination-Dependent Requirements for Heterojunctions and Carrier-Selective Contacts on Silicon.” IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics10, no. 5 (2020): 1214-1225.
5. Jakub Holovský, Michael Stuckelberger, Tomáš Finsterle, Brianna Conrad, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Martin Müller, and Franz-Josef Haug. “Towards Quantitative Interpretation of Fourier-Transform Photocurrent Spectroscopy on Thin-Film Solar Cells.” Coatings10, no. 9 (2020): 820.
6. Eva Horynová, Oleksandr  Romanyuk,  Lukáš  Horák,  Zdeněk  Remeš,  Brianna  Conrad, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landova, Jana Houdková, Petr Jiříček, Tomáš Finsterle, Jakub Holovský “Optical characterization of low temperature amorphous MoOX, WOX, and VOX prepared by pulsed laser deposition” Thin Solid Films 693 (2020): 137690.
7. Jakub Holovský, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Branislav Dzurňák, Brianna Conrad, Martin Ledinský, Zdeňka Hájková et al. “Lead Halide Residue as a Source of Light-Induced Reversible Defects in Hybrid Perovskite Layers and Solar Cells.” ACS Energy Letters4, no. 12 (2019): 3011-3017.
8. Amalraj Peter Amalathas and Maan M. Alkaisi. “Nanostructures for light trapping in thin film solar cells.” Micromachines 10, no. 9 (2019): 619.
9. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Brianna Conrad, Jakub Holovský, “Concentration-Dependent Impact of Alkali Li Metal Doped Mesoporous TiO2 Electron Transport Layer on the Performance of CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite Solar Cells”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 123 (32) (2019), 19376-19384.
10. K Balashangar, S Paranthaman, M Thanihaichelvan, PA Amalraj, D Velauthapillai, P Ravirajan, “Multi-walled carbon nanotube incorporated nanoporous titanium dioxide electrodes for hybrid polymer solar cells” Materials Letters 219 (2018) 265-268.
11. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Efficient light trapping nanopyramid structures for solar cells patterned using UV nanoimprint lithography”, Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing, 57 (2017) 54-58.
12. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Periodic upright nanopyramid fabricated by ultraviolet curable nanoimprint lithography for thin film solar cells”, International Journal of Nanotechnology, 14 (2017) 3-14.
13. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Upright nanopyramid structured cover glass with light harvesting and self-cleaning effects for solar cell applications”, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 49 (2016) 465601.

Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Effects of film thickness and sputtering power on properties of ITO thin films deposited by RF magnetron sputtering without oxygen”, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, 27 (2016) 11064-11071.

Conference Full Papers

1. Brianna Conrad, Martin Muller, Zdenek Reme, Lucie Landova, Lukas Horak, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Jakub Holovský, “Effect of a-Si on CH3NH3PbI3 Films and Applications in Perovskite Solar Cells” Proceedings of IEEE 46th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Chicago, IL, USA, June 2019, 0451-0456.
2. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Abelová, Brianna Conrad, Branislav Dzurňák, Martin Ledinský, Jakub Holovský, “Probing photoinduced degradation of CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite films by Kelvin Probe and Photoluminescence techniques”, Proceedings of 35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2018), Brussels, Belgium, September 2018, 856 – 859.
3. Brianna Conrad, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Jakub Holovský, “Fundamental and Technological Limits to Low-Light Efficiency of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells”, Proceedings of 35nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2018), Brussels, Belgium, September 2018, 716-720.
4. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Enhanced Light Scattering and Hydrophobicity of Glass with Upright Nanopyramid Structure for Solar Cells Using UV Nanoimprint Lithography”, Proceedings of 32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2016), Munich, Germany, June 2016, 0245-0248.
5. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Enhancing the performance of solar cells with inverted nanopyramid structures fabricated by UV nanoimprint lithography”, Proceedings of IEEE 43rd Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Portland, OR, USA, June 2016, 0346-0349.
6. A.Amalraj, K.Balashangar, P.Ravirajan, “Hybrid TiO2/ Polymer solar Cells Made with Functionalized Single Wall carbon Nanotube (SWNT)”, Proceedings of First National Nanotechnology Conference – 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 2012, 45-47.

Conference Abstracts

1. Jakub Holovský, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Katarina Ridzoňová, “Predicting Solar Cell Material Limits from Fourier-Transform Photocurrent Spectroscopy Measurements”, 35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2021), 06-10 September 2021.
2. Lukáš Horák, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Jakub Holovský, “Texture analysis of strongly oriented MAPbI3 layers using fast reciprocal-space mapping”, 25th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography- IUCr 2021, Prague, Czech Republic, 14-22 August 2021.
3. Jakub Holovský, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Rupendra Kumar Sharma, “Optical and electrical performance of a layer in solar cell in a limit of very low thickness”, The 2021 Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS), 31 May- 4 June 2021.
4. Jakub Holovský, Brianna Conrad, Luca Antognini, Rupendra Kumar Sharma, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Mathieu Boccard, “Illumination-Dependent Requirements for Heterojunctions and Carrier-Selective Contacts on Silicon”, 11th International Conference on Silicon Photovoltaics (SiliconPV 2021), 19-23 April, 2021.
5. Jakub Holovský, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Landová, Branisalv Dzurňák, Brianna Conrad, Martin Ledinský, Ognen Pop Georgievski, Jan Svoboda, Terry Chien-Jen Yang, Quentin Jeangros, “Metallic lead formation as a culprit of light-induced reversible changes in CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite layers and solar cells”, The 28th International Conference on Amorphous and Nano-crystalline Semiconductors (ICANS), Paris, France, 4-9 August 2019.
6. Eva Horynová, Brianna Conrad, Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Abelová, Ognen Pop-georgievski, Zdeněk Remeš, Jakub Holovský, “Optical characterization of high work function transparent conducive oxide thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition”, The 2019 Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS), Nice, France, 27-31 May, 2019
7. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie landova, Brianna Conrad, Jakub Holovský, “Alkali Lithium Metal Doping Effects on Mesoporous TiO2 Electron Transport Layer Based CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite Solar Cells” 11th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV19), Rome,Italy, 12-15 May 2019
8. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Lucie Abelová, Brianna Conrad, Branislav Dzurňák, Martin Ledinský, Jakub Holovský, “Interface charge dynamics in heterogeneous CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite structures studied by Kelvin Probe and Photoluminescence techniques” 10th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV18), Benidorm, Spain, 28-31 May 2018.
9. Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube (MWCNT) Incorporated Nanoporous Titanium Dioxides (TiO2) Photo-anodes for Hybrid TiO2/ Polymer Solar Cells, K. Balashangar, S. Paranthaman, M. Thanihaichelvan, A. Amalraj, D.Velauthapillai and P. Ravirajan, International Symposium on Nanomaterials for Clean Energy and Health Applications (ISNCHA – 2017), Coimbatore, India, 6-8, December 2017.
10. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “Nanopyramid Structures with Light Harvesting and Self-cleaning Functions for High Performance Solar Cells”, 8th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (AMN-8), Queenstown, New Zealand, 12-16 Feb 2017.
11. Balashangar, S. Paranthaman, P. A. Amalraj, M. Thanihaichelvan, P. Ravirajan, “Multiwall carbon nanotube (MWNT) for enhancing the performance of hybrid titanium dioxide /
    poly(3-hexylthiophene) solar cells”, 3rd International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology -2016 (ICNSNT-2016), Colombo, Sri Lanka, 15-16 December 2016.
12. Amalraj Peter Amalathas, Maan M Alkaisi, “The Formation of Periodic Upright Nano-Pyramids Using UV Nanoimprint Lithography (UV-NIL)”, 7th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (AMN-7), Nelson, New Zealand, 8-12 February 2015.
13. Loheeswaran, P. A. Amalraj, K. Balashangar and P. Ravirajan, “Improving the performance of Titanium dioxide / polymer solar cell by introducing monolayers at the interface”, Jaffna University International Research Conference-2012 (JUICE-2012), Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 20-21 July 2012.
14. Loheeswaran, P.A. Amalraj, K. Balashangar, and P. Ravirajan, “Improving the performance of hybrid Titanium dioxide/polymer Solar Cell using Single Wall carbon Nanotube (SWNT)”, The First International Conference on Advanced Materials, Science and Engineering (ICAMSE), Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 2-3, 2012.

P.A.Amalraj, K. Balashangar, P. Ravirajan, “Improving the performance of Hybrid TiO2/polymer Solar Cells using functionalized Single Wall carbon Nanotube”, International conference on New and Renewable Energy 2012 (ICNRE 2012), Daegu, KNU,Korea, March 16-17, 2012.

• UC Doctoral Scholarship, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, 2013-2016.
• The “University prize” for the best performance in the Honors Degree examination in Science, 2010, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
• “Sir Arunachalam Mahadeva Memorial Prize” for the best performance in the Honors Degree examination in Science specialized in Physics, 2010, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
• “Ramalingam Veerasingam Memorial Prize” for the best performance in Theoretical Physics unit in the Honors Degree Examination in Science, 2010, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
• “Prof. Kanthia Kunaratnam Scholarship for being the best student selected to read for an Honors Degree in Physics, 2008, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

• 7^th Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 02 November 2020 (Oral Presentation).
• 6^th Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 21 October 2019 (Oral Presentation).
• 11th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV19), Rome, Italy, 12-15 May 2019 (Poster Presentation).
• Landsberg Seminar-fundamental problems in photovoltaics, Prague, Czech Republic, 15 March 2019.
• 5^th Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 05 March 2019 (Oral Presentation).
• 4^th Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 24 October 2018 (Oral Presentation).
• 35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2018), Brussels, Belgium, 24-28 September 2018 (Oral Presentation).
• Visiting Researcher, PV-Lab, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, 2-12 July 2018.
• 10th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV18), Benidorm, Spain, 28-31 May 2018 (Poster Presentation).
• Landsberg Seminar-fundamental problems in photovoltaics, Prague, Czech Republic, 26 March 2018.
• 3^rd Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 21 March 2018 (Oral Presentation).
• 9^th INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON TEACHING IN PHOTOVOLTAICS (IWTPV 18), Prague, Czech Republic, 15-16 March 2018.
• 2^nd Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (CAP) Assembly, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic, 30 October 2017.
• 8th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (AMN-8) , Queenstown, New Zealand, Feb 12-16, 2017 (Oral presentation)
• 32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) 2016, Munich, Germany, June 20-24, 2016 (Poster Presentation).
• 43rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Portland, OR, USA, June 5-10, 2016 (Poster presentation).
• Scientific Writing Course: How to write good journal papers and present good conference papers, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, 24 Feb -10 March 2015.
• 7th international conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (AMN 7), Nelson, New Zealand, February 8-12, 2015 (Poster Presentation).
• Photovoltaics bootcamp 2014, Craigieburn Environmental Education Centre, Canterbury, New Zealand, Organized by MESA and MacDiarmid Institute, April 6- 9,2014.
• Advanced Workshop on Thin-film solar cells: their science, fabrication, and characterization, University of Ruhuna, March 19-21, 2013.
• First National Nanotechnology Conference-2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 24-25, 2012.
• Jaffna University International Research Conference-2012 (JUICE-2012), Jaffna, Sri Lanka, July 20-21, 2012.
• Participated as a resource person, Practical Workshop for GCE (A/L) Physics Teachers, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, December 17-19, 2011.

Workshop on Research Methodology for Study Programmes in Physical Sciences, University of Jaffna, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, February 2010.

• MIEEE (USA), Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• MInstP (UK), Member of the Institute of Physics, UK

Editorial Board Member

• Topic Editor: Crystals (2020)

Reviewer of SCI Indexed Journals:

• Dalton Transactions,
• IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
• Journal of Physics: Energy
• Journal of Electronic Materials
• Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
• Energies
• Molecules
• Crystals
• Materials
• Coatings
• Electronic Materials
• Applied Sciences
• Encyclopedia