Henry Snaith undertook his PhD at the University of Cambridge, working on organic photovolatics under, then spent two years at the EPFL, in Switzerland, as a post doc working on dye-sensitized solar cells under. He returned to the Cambridge to take up a Fellowship for Clare College in 2006, and moved to the Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford Physics in 2007, where he now holds a professorship and directs a group researching in optoelectronics, specifically organic, hybrid and perovskite devices. His research is focused on developing new materials and structures for hybrid solar cells and understanding and controlling the physical processes occurring at interfaces. He has made a number of significant advances for emerging PV, including the first demonstration of “gyroid” structured titania for dye solar cells, the first demonstration of a mesoporous single crystal of TiO2 and the relatively recent discovery that metal halide perovskites can operate extremely efficiently in thin film solar cells. His recent work with perovskite solar cells has transformed the PV research community, and arguably created a new field of research. He has raised over £15M in research funding from the UK research councils, European Commission and Industry over the last 8 years, which supports his research team.

In December 2010 he founded Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd. which is rapidly commercializing the perovskite solar technology transferred from his University Laboratory. Oxford PV Ltd. has thus far raised £30M in equity funding and is in the process of establishing a manufacturing facility for the perovskite solar cell technology transferred from Prof. Snaith’s university laboratory.

Prof. Snaith has received a number of research awards including the Institute of Physics Patterson Medal and Prize (2012), the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2014) and the European Materials Research Society EU-40 Materials Prize (2015), and the Photovoltaics Specialist Conference Young Investigator Award in 2015. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015, and received the Royal Society James Joule Medal and Prize in 2017. In addition he was named one of “Natures Ten” people who mattered in 2013, and assessed as being the world’s 2nd most influential scientific mind in 2016, based on citations of his seminal scientific papers on perovskite solar cells, and is a 2017 Clarivate Citation Laureate, for the “discovery and application of perovskite materials to achieve efficient energy conversion”.