Engineering New Nanostructured Materials for Tunable Light-Matter Interactions

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Nanomaterials engineering presents a rich venue for the development of new materials with unique functionalities amenable to a variety of applications – computing, communications, sensing, and energy – to name a few. This abundance of possibilities arises from the fact that at the nanoscale, size shape and structure play a significant role in determining material properties and associated phenomena - in addition to composition. One exciting field of study is that of light-matter interactions at the nanoscale, and in particular, lines of inquiry motivated by the objective of developing effective means of harnessing light energy.******Considering that the unremitting rays of the sun bathe the globe in light energy at an average power level of ~89,000 TW* – some three orders beyond our present global energy consumption rate of ~20 TW and where the latter is principally comprised of depleting fossil fuels – it clearly behooves us to develop the next generation of materials and devices that can effectively tap this light energy – generating electricity and solar fuels, daylighting, heating and cooling – and thus advancing the vision of realizing a sustainable society.******Dr. Kherani's research program is to develop new nanomaterials with a high degree of compositional, structural and size control that will enable the attainment of desired light-matter interaction in devices that harvest and control light energy, as well as allied emergent devices in the fields of sensing, imaging and photonics in general. Advances in tunable nanomaterials capable of enhanced interaction with visible, infrared, and mid-infrared radiation can lead to new paradigms—enabling effective conversion of solar and thermal radiation into electrical energy, and efficient utilization of light energy through facile control over the flow of visible and invisible light energy (for example, through windows). Further, rationally designed nanomaterials can also be applied for photoactive applications including smart photo-thermo-response optical devices, photocatalytic generation of solar fuels (for example, hydrogen and hydrocarbon fuels from solar energy) and artificial photosynthesis.******________________****While this is the total power flux, the technical potential of electricity generation is ~7,500 TW and that for solar fuels (hydrogen production) is ~2,500 TW; the latter estimates include 30% and 10% photovoltaic and photochemical conversion efficiencies, respectively. These figures also account for the generally inaccessible oceans and frigid poles.