SOLAR: Novel Nanomaterials and Mathematical Analysis for Ultra-High Efficiency Photovoltaic Systems: A New Paradigm in Solar Cells

提高太阳能电池的效率和可负担性是实现能源可持续性的关键目标。使用半导体纳米材料与有机半导体聚合物配对提供了希望，有可能实现成本效益高的异质结器件。然而，目前的方法是有限的小激子扩散长度和次优的传输特性，在今天发现的纳米材料聚集体？最先进的设备。克服这些限制可以导致太阳能电池性能的重大突破。本提案旨在解决上述限制。拟议的工作是一个为期3年的项目，重点是合成具有长激子寿命的新型纳米材料，如GaN单壁纳米管，以及使用对齐良好的自组装中间相作为这些新型纳米材料定向组装的模板。纳米间隔阵列中各向异性纳米材料的组装将通过提供由小于激子扩散长度本身的长度尺度分开的高的可控周期性的电子-空穴解离表面来提供显著增加的光诱导电荷转移。.在这些对齐的表面处的解离提供到装置的外部电极的直接电子传导路径。 用于激子解离的这种高表面积的组织将使用可扩展的并且不需要先进光刻的方法来完成。谐波分析将被利用来大大提高新纳米材料的电光特性的从头计算和多参数空间中的实验设计，该多参数空间将光伏性能与材料成分和设备assemblies.NON技术摘要：拟议的工作将为清洁和可持续能源发电提供设计基础。如果成功执行，它将产生新的材料和工艺，从而实现更高的效率和更具成本效益的太阳能电池。该项目具有广泛的技术影响，因为在基础研究过程中开发的材料和方法可以应用于其他领域，如热电能量收集，发光二极管，光电探测器和先进的化学分离。一些教育和外联活动已纳入拟议的工作。其中包括与三个本科重点机构合作开展的研究研讨会计划，学生的招聘，特别是来自代表性不足的群体，夏季研究项目以及为耶鲁大学的本科化学工程入门课程创建实验设计的新模块。拟议研究的总体影响是：（1）开发新科学，推动太阳能技术的变革性进步（2）开发具有广泛技术相关性的材料和方法，超越光化学（3）对研究生和研究人员进行跨学科的培训，材料科学和数学（4）参与和指导本科生的研究（5）招聘代表性不足的群体的科学。

TECHNICAL SUMMARY:Increasing solar cell efficiency and affordability are critical objectives for achieving energy sustainability. The use of semiconducting nanomaterials paired with organic semiconducting polymers offers promise here, with the possibility to realize cost effective high performance heterojunction devices. Current approaches however are limited by small exciton diffusion lengths and the sub-optimal transport characteristics of the percolated nanomaterial aggregates found in today?s state of the art devices. Overcoming these limitations can lead to significant breakthroughs in solar cell performance. This proposal aims to address the above mentioned limitations. The proposed work is a 3-year project that focuses on the synthesis of novel nanomaterials with long excitonic lifetimes such as GaN single walled nanotubes, and the use of well aligned self-assembled mesophases as templates for the directed assembly of these novel nanomaterials. Assembly of anisotropic nanomaterials in nm-spaced arrays will provide significantly increased photo-induced charge transfer by providing electron-hole dissociation surfaces of high, controllable periodicity, separated by length scales that are smaller than the exciton diffusion length itself. . Dissociation at these aligned surfaces provides direct electron conduction pathways to the external electrodes of the device. The organization of this high surface area for exciton dissociation will be accomplished using methods that are scalable and do not require advanced lithography. Harmonic analysis will be leveraged to considerably enhance both ab initio calculations of the electro-optical properties of novel nanomaterials and design of experiments in the multi-parameter space that correlates photo-voltaic performance with material composition and device assembly.NON TECHNICAL SUMMARY:The proposed work will provide the design basis for clean and sustainable energy generation. Successfully executed, it will result in new materials and processes enabling higher efficiency and more cost-effective solar cells. This project has a broad technical impact as the materials and methods developed during the course of the basic research can be applied in other areas such as thermoelectric energy harvesting, light emitting diodes, photodetectors and advanced chemical separations. A number of educational and outreach activities have been integrated into the proposed work. These include a research seminar program run in partnership with three undergraduate focused institutions, recruitment of students, especially from underrepresented groups, for summer research projects and the creation of a new module on experimental design for the introductory undergraduate Chemical Engineering course at Yale University. The impacts of the proposed research overall are: (1) Development of new science that will drive transformative advances in solar technology (2) Development of materials and methods with a broad range of technological relevance beyond photovoltaics (3) Highly interdisciplinary training of graduate students and researchers cutting across chemistry, materials science and mathematics (4) Involvement and mentoring of undergraduate students in research (5) Recruitment of underrepresented groups to science.