New Concepts and Materials for Solar Energy Conversion

Efficient conversion of solar photons into other forms of energy has become one of the primary objectives of the modern science and technology. The presentation will focus on methods to engineer the energy band structure of semiconductor materials for specific energy related applications. It will discuss recent progress in using group III-nitride semiconductor alloys for full solar spectrum, high efficiency multi-junction solar cells. The second part of the presentation will be devoted to recent advances in utilizing highly mismatched semiconductor alloys for intermediate band solar cells. I will present most recent results on demonstration of the first intermediate band photovoltaic device. Finally, I will discuss potential applications of the highly mismatched alloys for the photoelectrochemical solar water splitting.

Speaker: Dr. Wladek Walukiewicz, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Room 521