Nitride materials: In the “bond ionicity Goldilocks zone” for solar energy

目前，由于缺乏可通过可扩展方法制造的富含地球的、稳定的、无毒的半导体材料，阻碍了用于太阳能驱动的氢能发电以及车辆现场发电的商业设备的进展。该项目旨在为一类具有良好的键离子活性的富土锌基氮化物半导体纳米晶体开发第一种可扩展的溶液合成方法，并首次确定其用于可再生能源设备的光电性能。灵活的溶液处理方法将被用来调整表面成分、消除缺陷和创建器件，以在这些具有挑战性的新氮化物材料系统中实现最佳性能。

Progress towards commercial devices for solar-driven hydrogen generation as well as in-situ electricity generation for vehicles is currently hampered by a lack of earth-abundant, stable, non-toxic semiconductor materials that can be fabricated by scalable methods. This project aims to develop the first scalable solution synthesis methods for a new class of earth-abundant Zn-based nitride semiconductor nanocrystals that have favourable bond ionicity and establish their optoelectronic properties for renewable energy devices for the first time. Flexible solution processing methods will be exploited to tune surface composition, remove defects and create devices to achieve optimised performance in these challenging new nitride material systems.