Clark Lecture Series, Elizabeth Young, Lehigh University
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
With the world’s ever-increasing energy demand, the need for alternative energy sources that eliminate our reliance on polluting fossil fuels is more critical than ever. Research is underway on a wide range of alternative energy sources – one of the most promising being solar energy. Thin-film solar cell constructs have received much attention over the last several decades as a compelling paradigm for solar energy harvesting. In order to design useful systems for solar energy conversion, several design features must be considered including chemical- and photo-stability, high extinction coefficients, and the ability to systematically control the physical construction of these cells. I will discuss the design factors in developing new solar energy materials, introduce the basics of how solar cells function and introduce our recent work on stibnite (Sb2S3), which can be employed as the photo-active layer in next generation thin-film solar cells. Our results can be correlated to the structure and function of materials to develop a fundamental, detailed, quantitative understanding of photoinduced charge transfer dynamics through thin films of materials.