AUCAOS Symposium 2025: A strong showing for organic semiconductor research and a proud moment for ACAP as Platinum Sponsor

The 2025 Australasian Community for Advanced Organic Semiconductors (AUCAOS) Symposium was held from 26–28 November in Tweed Heads, bringing together 73 researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Germany, South Korea, India and the UK. As platinum sponsor, ACAP was proud to support this vibrant forum celebrating excellence across organic electronics, photophysics and next-generation photovoltaic materials.

Convened for the first time by A/Prof Paul Shaw (UQ’s Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics –COPE) and Prof Chris McNeill (Monash), the program featured two outstanding keynote presentations: Professor Martin Heeney (KAUST) on backbone editing of conjugated polymers, and Professor Jenny Clark (University of Sheffield) on bidirectional exciton flow in organic systems.

Invited speaker Dr. Anirudh Sharma (KAUST) discussed, "Why interfaces matter: rethinking charge generation in non-fullerene solar cells".

Invited speakers included Dr Jessie Posar, Dr Petri Murto, Dr Bin Guan, Dr Anirudh Sharma and Dr Qian Liu, who each shared new advances spanning organic photovoltaics, OLEDs, neuromodulation, semiconductor micro-/nanostructures and thermoelectrics.

(l-r) Symposim Co-Chair A/Prof. Paul with prize winners Dexter Gordon (Best Student Talk) and Jess de la Perelle (Best ECR talk), and Co-Chair Prof. Chris McNeill.

Across three days of talks, posters and industry engagement, honours, PhD and early-career researchers played a central role. This year’s prize winners were:

• Best Student Talk: Dexter Gordon (UNSW): "The physical organic chemist’s toolbox for designing singlet fission chromophores"

• Best ECR Talk: Jess de la Perrelle (University of South Australia): "Photochemical reactivity of organic semiconductors in biological media"

• Poster Prizes: 1st – Jade Wilson (JCU); 2nd – Rhys Tunnadine (UniSA); 3rd – Mackenzie Burstow (UQ)

  
  

(l-r) A/Prof. Paul Shaw with poster prize winners Mackenzie Burstow (3rd Prize), Rhys Tunnadine (2nd Prize) and Jade Wilson (1st Prize), and Professor Chris McNeill.

A special session also honoured AUCAOS founder Professor Paul Burn (UQ), reflecting the long-standing strength of this community.

With strong participation, high-quality science and exceptional student engagement, AUCAOS 2025 once again highlighted the momentum and collaborative spirit driving advanced organic semiconductor research, accelerating innovative solar technologies.

UQ's James Smyth presenting "Combining modelling and experimental techniques to accelerate tandem photovoltaic optimisation" on day 1 of the AUCAOS Symposium 2025.

The Australasian Community for Advanced Organic Semiconductors provides easy access to contacting and learning about what Australian leaders in the field do, a forum for discussions through the annual symposia, and opportunities to build collaborations with industry, and other academic and publically funded partners. The community members have expertise in: Theory & Modelling; Frontier Materials Development; Photophysics; Morphology; Transport & Electronic Properties; Devices; and Commercialisation of Organic Semiconductors.