Researchers at Georgia Tech and Albany State University have received a $1.3 million award through the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Historically Black Colleges and Universities Excellence in Research (HBCU-EIR) program. The project will advance manufacturing methods for perovskite semiconductors, a class of materials with potential applications in solar energy, photonics, electronics, and quantum technologies. The award builds on work initially supported by Georgia Tech's Research Collaboration Forum Seed Grant Program.

The three-year project, Close-Space Sublimation for Scalable Perovskite Optoelectronics Manufacturing, is led by Liqiu Zheng, assistant professor of physics at Albany State, and Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, associate professor and Goizueta Junior Faculty Chair in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The researchers aim to develop manufacturing approaches for perovskite thin films that could make production faster, more material-efficient, and easier to scale.

The award also will expand Albany State’s research capabilities and create hands-on learning opportunities for students at both institutions.

Georgia Tech launched the Research Collaboration Forum (RCF) in 2023 to bring together researchers from Georgia Tech and historically Black colleges and universities, as well as representatives from industry, federal agencies, and national laboratories. Participants develop partnerships and pursue new research opportunities.

Through its Seed Grant Program, the forum provides early-stage funding to help teams generate preliminary results, build capacity, and compete for larger external awards. Grants have ranged from $10,000 to $50,000. The Georgia Tech-Albany State team was among the projects funded during the forum’s inaugural cycle.

"The RCF seed funding allowed us to establish the collaboration, generate preliminary data, and demonstrate that our teams could work effectively together," Correa-Baena said. "That initial year helped us identify the key scientific questions and provided the foundation for the new three-year, $1.3 million NSF award."

The project reflects a central goal of the RCF: helping promising collaborations move from initial conversations to sustained research partnerships with national impact.

"By bringing together Georgia Tech researchers, HBCU faculty, industry partners, and federal stakeholders, we are building research capacity, strengthening long-term collaborations, and creating pathways to larger funding opportunities," said George White, director of strategic partnerships at Georgia Tech.

The award will support new thin-film manufacturing and characterization equipment at Albany State. The investment will help researchers accelerate materials discovery, build long-term research capacity, and give students access to advanced semiconductor research tools.

“This award elevates the research footprint of Southwest Georgia and recognizes Albany State’s ability to contribute to nationally relevant scientific research,” Zheng said. “Beyond the research, it creates opportunities for students to gain experience with advanced semiconductor technologies and helps strengthen the pipeline of talent entering the semiconductor workforce.”

Albany State and Georgia Tech will jointly study thin-film growth, structure, and device performance. As part of the collaboration, Georgia Tech researchers will support Albany State as the team acquires and begins using the new equipment, sharing expertise in operation, data collection, and analysis.

Students will receive hands-on training in thin-film deposition, X-ray characterization, solar-cell fabrication, and data analysis. The project also includes exchanges between Georgia Tech and Albany State, giving students access to research facilities, expertise, and collaborative research opportunities at both institutions.

The research focuses on a manufacturing technique known as close-space sublimation. Researchers typically produce perovskite thin films using liquid inks. Close-space sublimation instead uses heat to transport material as vapor across a short distance. The team will investigate whether the approach can be adapted for perovskite materials, potentially enabling faster, more material-efficient, and more scalable manufacturing.

The progression from a Research Collaboration Forum seed grant to a federally funded research project illustrates the forum’s broader goal: helping Georgia Tech and HBCU researchers turn early connections into sustained collaborations that expand opportunity, strengthen research capacity, and advance discovery.

News Contact