We are interested in the fundamental chemistry and physics of materials relevant for solar energy conversion and storage. At some point in the near future, this page will feature topics including:

1. Why solar energy?
2. How much energy is available from the sun, how much of that energy could we practically harvest, and how expensive might that be?

We focus on the materials chemistry and the surface science of candidates for tandem-junction solar cells. If you haven’t heard of tandem-junction solar cells, think of stacked batteries that in this case absorb a different part of the solar spectrum to yield a device that is more efficient than their components.

Efforts within this focus address nontraditional light-absorbing materials that may have some ideal properties but may not be living up to their theoretical performance, and gluing dissimilar materials together as defects at the interface between two materials can drastically degrade performance.