After obtaining the doctorate (1989), he conducted research on the 2nd Physical Institute of the University of Stuttgart, Germany (1989–1992).
In 1992 he received the academic teaching license (venia docendi) by the Central Interuniversitary Commission (YÖK) in Ankara, Turkey.
He then went to the Institute for Polymers & Organic Solids at the University of California, Santa Barbara, California, United States, where he worked for four years and, together with Alan J. Heeger (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000) discovered and investigated the polymeric organic solar cells has (1992–1996).
In April 1996, he accepted the appointment as Chair of Physical Chemistry at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.
In 2000 he was appointed founding director of the Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS) at JKU.