About

Aditya D. Mohite is an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University, beginning his appointment on July 1. He has been a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) since 2010, initially joining as a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. Dr. Mohite earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Louisville in 2007, following a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in solid state physics from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India in 1999 and 2001, respectively. He also completed post-doctoral work at Rice University in 2009 under the guidance of Dr. Pulickel Ajayan and Dr. R. Bruce Weisman. Dr. Mohite's research focuses on understanding and controlling photo-physical processes at interfaces created with layered 2D materials, organic and inorganic materials, aiming to advance thin film light-to-energy conversion technologies such as photovoltaics and photo-catalysis. His work involves the application of correlated interface-sensitive techniques including photocurrent, time-resolved photoluminescence, electro-absorption, and impedance spectroscopy to investigate charge and energy transfer and recombination processes. He holds multiple professorships at Rice University, including the William M. Rice Trustee Professorship in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and appointments in Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemistry. Additionally, he serves as the Faculty Director of the Rice Engineering Initiative for Energy Transition and Sustainability (REINVENTS).

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Optoelectronics
• Materials science
• Physics
• Nanotechnology
• Inorganic chemistry
• Condensed matter physics
• Optics
• Chemical engineering
• Engineering physics
• Engineering
• Organic chemistry
• Crystallography
• Medicine
• Astrobiology
• Chemical physics

Selected publications

• Multimode phonon-polaritons in lead-halide perovskites in the ultrastrong coupling regime

  Nature Communications · 2025-09-30 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Phonons play a central role in fundamental solid-state phenomena, including superconductivity, Raman scattering, and symmetry-breaking phases. Harnessing phonons to control these effects and enable quantum technologies is therefore of great interest. However, most existing phonon control strategies rely on external driving fields or anharmonic interactions, limiting their applicability. Here, we realize multimode ultrastrong light-matter coupling and theoretically show the modulation of phonon emission. This regime is realized by coupling two optical phonon modes in lead halide perovskites to a nanoslot array functioning as a single-mode cavity. The small mode volume of the nanoslots enables high coupling strengths in the phonon-polariton system. We show theoretically that the nanoslot resonator mediates an effective interaction between phonon modes, leading to superthermal phonon bunching in thermal equilibrium between distinct modes. Our findings are well described by a multimodal Hopfield model. This work establishes a pathway for engineering phononic properties for light-harvesting and light-emitting technologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Overcoming the surface paradox: Buried perovskite quantum dots in wide-bandgap perovskite thin films

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2025-01-10 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Colloidal perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) are an exciting platform for on-demand quantum, and classical optoelectronic and photonic devices. However, their potential success is limited by the extreme sensitivity and low stability arising from their weak intrinsic lattice bond energy and complex surface chemistry. Here we report a novel platform of buried perovskite quantum dots (b-PQDs) in a three-dimensional perovskite thin-film, fabricated using one-step, flash annealing, which overcomes surface related instabilities in colloidal perovskite dots. The b-PQDs demonstrate ultrabright and stable single-dot emission, with resolution-limited linewidths below 130 μeV, photon-antibunching (g^2(0)=0.1), no blinking, suppressed spectral diffusion, and high photon count rates of 10^4/s, consistent with unity quantum yield. The ultrasharp linewidth resolves exciton fine-structures (dark and triplet excitons) and their dynamics under a magnetic field. Additionally, b-PQDs can be electrically driven to emit single photons with 1 meV linewidth and photon-antibunching (g^2(0)=0.4). These results pave the way for on-chip, low-cost single-photon sources for next generation quantum optical communication and sensing.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Two-dimensional perovskites with maximum symmetry enable exciton diffusion length exceeding 2 micrometers

  Research Square · 2025-05-21

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Design Principles for Narrow-Gap Hybrid Semiconductors: Insights from Viologen-Tin and Viologen-Lead Iodides

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-07-07 · 2 citations

  article

  Hybrid metal halide semiconductors containing “electronically active” organics are an arising subclass of materials that derive remarkable emergent optical properties from blending organic orbitals with the photophysics of metal halide semiconductors. Although this subclass has been known for some time, the majority of reported compounds are lead halides, and there is a paucity of systematic studies investigating the influence of structure and composition on organic energy levels in these materials. Herein we report the first viologen tin hybrids to be published in the form of: HVSnI4 (HV = hydroviologen), MeVSn2I6 (MeV = methylviologen), and EtVSn2I6 (EtV = ethylviologen). These materials exhibit emergent electronic structures where charge-transfer from the inorganic lattice to viologen LUMO states results in optical gaps as narrow as 1.10 eV. Through comparison of these compounds with their lead analogs and viologen iodide salts, we develop a systematic understanding of energy levels and lead/tin systems, which allows us to identify key chemical principles for future narrow-gap hybrid materials. We find that organic LUMO states in these materials are relatively immobile under the exchange of lead with tin but are strongly influenced by substituent choice, conformation, π–π stacking, and the polarizability of the inorganic lattice. We further study the energetic landscape of these materials in a set of lead/tin alloys (EtVPb2–xSnxI6) that do not exhibit the anomalous band-bowing typically associated with lead/tin alloys, providing a new point of evidence that this phenomenon generally relies on concomitant motions of the inorganic conduction and valence band. Photoresponse of HVSnI4 pressed pellet devices to 1064 nm light establishes the potential of these materials for NIR optoelectronic applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Exciton and carrier dynamics of binary layered Dion-Jacobson perovskites

  2025-03-19

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Polymorphism and Phase Control in Dion–Jacobson 2D 3-(Aminomethyl)piperidinium-Based Metal Iodide Perovskites

  Chemistry of Materials · 2025-12-03 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Two-dimensional halide perovskites exhibit rich structural diversity and tunable optoelectronic properties, making them promising materials for energy, sensing, and photonic applications. We report the structural mapping of four distinct polymorphs, γ (P21/c), β (P4/mbm), α (P4/mmm), and δ (Cmcm) in the two-dimensional iodoplumbate, iodostannate, and iodogermanate perovskite so-called Dion–Jacobson series (3AMP)MI4 (M = Sn, Pb, Ge), where 3AMP is 3-(aminomethyl)piperidinium. The phases exhibit systematic evolution in octahedral distortion, lattice symmetry, and metal–halide geometry, enabling structural control over optoelectronic properties. Notably, the α-phase of (3AMP)SnI4 represents a rare, ambient-stable, high-symmetry structure for Sn-based perovskites, without a phase transition down to 100 K. Variable-temperature single-crystal diffraction, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and calorimetry reveal metal- and temperature-dependent polymorph interconversions, including the emergence of long-range supercell reflections in Pb-rich compositions at low temperature. Optical spectroscopy and photoelectron yield spectroscopy confirm band gap tunability and band alignment trends, highlighting symmetry-dependent shifts and anomalous band gap bowing in mixed-metal systems, verified by electronic structure calculations. Calculations additionally indicate that the higher symmetry phases have reduced electron and hole effective masses compared to the lower symmetry phases.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Imaging light-matter interactions using low kinetic energy photoelectrons

  2025-05-28

  article

  In dielectric nanophotonics, understanding the confinement of light within subwavelength structures and manipulating the fields therein are of the utmost importance. In this talk, we present results from three optical systems to investigate the spatial distribution of the electromagnetic field in dielectric nanostructures and metasurfaces using photoelectron emission microscopy across a wide spectrum range spanning from deep ultraviolet to near-infrared. We show exemplars where the real-space near-field variations are intertwined with their spectroscopic signatures. These results demonstrate the applicability of photoelectron imaging with sub-optical wavelength resolution to examine light-matter interactions in volume-type photonic resonances supported by dielectric structures.

  PublisherDOI

• Tuning the d-Band Center of Pd-Based Catalysts for Efficient Glycerol Electro-Oxidation Coupled with Solar-Driven Hydrogen Production

  ECS Meeting Abstracts · 2025-11-24

  articleSenior author

  Water splitting is a promising method for sustainable hydrogen production. However, the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is thermodynamically unfavorable and inefficient, requiring expensive platinum metal group (PGM) group catalysts such as iridium oxide. One approach to lowering the energy demand is to bypass the OER entirely and replace it with a more thermodynamically favorable reaction. Selective oxidation of glycerol (GLYOR) is an attractive alternative to water oxidation due to its lower thermodynamic potential and ability to generate value-added products (e.g., glyceraldehyde, dihydroxyacetone, formic acid) at reduced overpotentials. The increasing production of biodiesel has led to a surplus of glycerol, making it a cheap feedstock and optimal candidate for upgrading. Catalytic efficiency in GLYOR can be predicted using Nørskov’s d-band theory, which describes how the bond strength between a molecule and a transition metal surface is governed by the average energy level of metal d-orbitals. Generally, metal binding strength decreases as the d-band center shifts downward. While platinum is considered the most efficient GLYOR catalyst because of its optimal binding energy and low d-band center, its scarcity and high cost limit scalability. Palladium is a promising alternative, though its higher d-band center reduces catalytic activity. To address this, we have developed Pd-M based catalysts to understand and correlate electrochemical activity with Pd’s d-band center. We synthesized a morphology-controlled Pd nanocube catalyst and series of Pd-M (M = Cu, Ag) nanoparticles using a one-pot reduction technique and compared their performance with regular, monometallic Pd nanoparticles. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to characterize the electronic structure of the catalysts. We observed increased shifts in XPS binding energy, suggesting that the incorporation of metals with a lower d-band center shifts Pd’s d-band center downward. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) revealed reduced onset potentials for the alloyed catalysts, which is consistent with the degree of shifting observed in XPS. These catalysts demonstrated excellent stability in an anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer, operating at <1V for over 500hrs at 20 mA/cm² and at <1.5V at 100 mA/cm². PdCu has displayed the best stability for over 1000 hours at both 20 mA/cm² and 100 mA/cm². We selected PdCu as the best catalyst to construct a PEC reactor, integrating a single-junction perovskite with a zero-gap configuration to achieve solar-to-hydrogen (STH) >20% while producing glyceric acid, glycolic acid, and lactic acid at the anode. These results pave the way for the development of GLYOR catalysts and their integration with green hydrogen PEC systems, enabling the direct conversion of waste feedstocks into value-added products using sunlight. Figure 1

  PublisherDOI

• Direct Evaluation of Perovskite Solar Cell Performance and Stability Using Transient and Steady‐State Transport Measurements

  Advanced Energy Materials · 2025-06-26 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract In this study, a direct correlation between charge transport properties and the stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) using time‐ and frequency‐domain measurements is provided. Faster charge carrier extraction and reduced nonradiative recombination serve as key indicators of stability and performance, implying the prevention of charge accumulation and defect formation, thereby reducing degradation. Stable, phase‐pure formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI₃, or FAPI) templated with 2D perovskite‐based PSCs is compared, against conventional methylammonium chloride (MACl)‐stabilized FAPI‐based PSCs. Lattice‐engineered, strain‐relaxed growth in 2D‐templated FAPI‐based devices leads to enhanced charge extraction and faster transport timescales, as confirmed by Transient Photocurrent (TPC) and Intensity‐Modulated Photocurrent Spectroscopy (IMPS) measurements are demonstrated. Furthermore, Transient Photovoltage (TPV) and Impedance Spectroscopy (IS) reveal reduced non‐radiative recombination losses in these 2D‐templated FAPI devices. Moreover, the use of these techniques highlights their effectiveness in monitoring fundamental processes and deriving key parameters to evaluate the intrinsic stability of PSCs, also under prolonged UV light exposure. This integrated approach underscores the critical role of combining time and frequency‐domain analyses in understanding the performance, durability, and long‐term stability of PSCs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Keldysh tuning of photoluminescence in a lead halide perovskite crystal

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-08-14 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  In 1964, Keldysh laid the groundwork for strong-field physics in atomic, molecular, and solid-state systems by delineating a ubiquitous transition from multiphoton absorption to classical field-driven electron tunneling under intense electromagnetic waves. While both processes in semiconductors can generate carriers and result in photon emission through electron-hole recombination, the low quantum yields in most materials have hindered direct observation of the Keldysh crossover. Leveraging the large quantum yields of photoluminescence in lead halide perovskites, we show that we can not only induce bright light emission from extreme subbandgap excitation but also distinguish between photon-induced and electric-field-induced processes. Our results span the transition between quantum-mechanical and classical field effects of the light and provide generalizable insights into the nonequilibrium dynamics that result from strong-field light-matter interactions. The findings also open avenues for light upconversion and subbandgap photon detection, highlighting the potential of lead halide perovskites in advanced optoelectronic applications.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jacky Even

  Fonctions Optiques pour les Technologies de l’information

  319 shared

• Claudine Katan

  École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes

  283 shared

• Hsinhan Tsai

  National Taiwan University

  170 shared

• Jean‐Christophe Blancon

  Rice University

  168 shared

• Mikaël Képénékian

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  162 shared

• Mercouri G. Kanatzidis

  Northwestern University

  161 shared

• Boubacar Traoré

  Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako

  153 shared

• Wanyi Nie

  Los Alamos National Laboratory

  149 shared

Labs

• Materials Physics for Energy Management (Mohite Research Group at Rice University)PI

Education

• PhD, Electrical Engineering

  University of Louisville

  2007

• MS, Physics

  Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

  2001

• BS, Physics

  Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

  1999