This project is jointly funded by the Energy, Power, and Adaptive Systems (EPAS) Program in the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) and the Electronic and Photonic Materials (EPM) Program in the Division of Materials Research (DMR).
Research Objectives and Approaches: The objective of this research is to design, fabricate and characterize unique solar cell devices based on strained core-shell semiconductor nanowires. The approach is to design the strained core-shell nanowires so that spatial separation of the electrons and holes occur quantum mechanically on a very short time scale which results in longer charge lifetimes. Photovoltaic devices will be fabricated from these nanowires and electronic structure and performance will be confirmed through optical and transport measurements.
Intellectual Merit: Most existing solar-cell technologies use electric fields to separate electrons and holes which can be inefficient and slow. Design of strained core-shell nanowires can enable the rapid separation of electrons and holes through quantum confinement into different layers which should dramatically increase the efficiency for converting light into usable power. Control of the strain allows tuning of the band structure and offsets, which provides a route for optimizing the resulting solar cells.
Broader Impacts: This research has strong societal impacts because of the potential for designing high-efficiency solar cells for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. The increased fundamental knowledge of electronic structure and transport in strained core-shell nanowires also significantly impacts nanowire electronics and nanowire-based chemical or biological sensors. The proposed research will train undergraduate and graduate students in advanced theoretical and experimental nanotechnology techniques. In addition, a summer workshop for select high school teachers will guide new educational materials development to allow future students to share in the excitement of and knowledge behind this alternate energy research.
