Great Support to Our Faculty Member from European Union

Our Electronics and Communication Engineering Faculty Member Dr. Onur Ergen’s project titled “QUEEN” has been awarded the prestigious Horizon Europe European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant.

Horizon Europe European Research Council (ERC), which supports investigator-driven research with the philosophy that the researchers will determine their own direction to produce promising projects, announced that it will give 1.4 million Euros support for our Electronics and Communication Engineering faculty member Dr. Onur Ergen’s project titled “QUEEN”. The project titled “Quantum Super-Exchange Energy Storage Platform - QUEEN”, which is the first ERC project undertaken by Istanbul Technical University, leverages quantum electron engineering to introduce a whole new approach to physics and chemistry to redesign traditional battery technology and move it beyond existing theoretical limits. By 2035, the research aims to increase battery energy density by twenty-fold, which with present technology is expected to increase only by twofold.  This opens the door to new domains of maximum power and energy for any battery chemistry and introduces instantaneous charging capabilities. 

The QUEEN project will make the chaotic ion and electron transport in battery chemistries more precise and programmable.  In doing so, it paves the way for achieving groundbreakingly thin battery operation distances (2nm-5nm between anode and cathode) with instantaneous ion transfer and battery architectures that can accommodate 10000 times more current than today's battery technologies. The QUEEN project, which decodes complex matter to introduce control over any given battery chemistry, will not only provide a blueprint for the next battery technology but will also unlock the potential for 2D materials in areas such as biology, flexible electronics, and spintronics. 

We congratulate our faculty member and wish him success in his studies.

About Asst. Prof. Dr. Onur Ergen

Dr. Onur Ergen received his B.Sc. degree in Physics from METU in 2007 and his first M.Sc. degree in Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering from University of California at Berkeley in 2011, specializing in nanotechnology and device physics. He received his second M.Sc. degree and PhD degree in Physics from University of California at Berkeley, in 2014 and 2017, respectively, where he specialized in condensed matter and solid-state physics in energy harvesting and storage technologies. He has worked at Intel Corp. on the development of novel semiconductors and next generation chip technologies and at Apple Inc. where he was responsible for developing automated systems, OLED display technologies and AI at Solo Power Inc. where he conducted R&D research and development activities on flexible solar cells. He is the co-founder and board member of a VC funded Silicon Valley based company, Next-Ion Energy, which develops cutting-edge materials & technologies for ultra-fast charging batteries.  Additionally, he is Senior Technologist of Ambeent Inc, a Silicon Valley startup developing next generation AI algorithms for 5G&6G technologies and winner of the prestigious Horizon 2020 EIC SME Phase II grant.