Events

Materials Science and Engineering Seminar Series presents Professor Harry Atwater from the California Institute of Technology. Professor Atwater will give a talk on "New Directions for Energy from Sunlight".

Abstract
The recent rapid, global growth of silicon photovoltaics has moved the sciience frontier for solar energy towards new opportunities including i) high efficiency (η > 30%) photovoltaics based on high radiative efficiency and ii) direct synthesis of energy-dense chemical fuels from sunlight, including hydrogen and products from reduction of carbon dioxide. Photonic design has opened new directions for high efficiency photovoltaics and luminescent solar concentrators. Materials for light harvesting, charge transport and catalytic selectivity are key building blocks fuel synthesis. Semiconductors coupled to water oxidation and reduction catalysts have enabled approaches to photoelectrochemical solar-to-hydrogen generation with >19% efficiency using artificial photosynthetic structures.  Solar-driven reduction of carbon dioxide presents a particular challenge in the selective generation of useful multi-carbon products, spurring new directions for selective photocatalytic materials for artificial photosynthesis. 

The Materials Science and Engineering Seminar is jointly sponsored by the Materials Research Laboratory and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.