Atomic-scale engineering of nanomaterials for solar energy
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Energy consumption determines the economic, environmental and political viability of many nations. With limited resources in our planet, it is imperative to industrialize renewable energy technology. Solar energy is a promising alternative to fossil fuels but current solar technology is limited in energy conversion efficiencies and cost effectiveness. Advances made in nanoscale solar technology suggest that the necessary engineering breakthroughs will stem from our ability to develop devices with sophisticated and precise atomic structures. Thus, a major obstacle preventing the commercialization of solar technology is our inability to cost-effectively fabricate materials with atomic-level precision. In this work, the energy conversion and transport properties of solar-energy-harvesting nanomaterials are tuned by engineering their atomic structure with atomic layer deposition (ALD), a commercially available technique. Charge transport in zinc oxide thin films was engineered by introducing aluminum dopants that increased the population of weakly bound electrons. Energy conversion in lead sulfide (PbS) was engineered by making use of island growth mechanisms during the initial cycles of ALD, resulting in quantum dots (QDs) with tunable band gaps above 1 eV. Charge extraction between PbS QDs and metal oxide nanoparticles was enhanced by inserting atomically-thin barriers at their interfaces. Additionally, a combination of ALD with x-ray absorption enabled atomic-level insight at junctions between PbS QDs and metal oxide nanoparticles. This combination is novel in its ability to finely characterize and control the bonding environment between two structurally-distinct nanomaterials. Overall, this work provides examples of enhancing performance of solar energy nanomaterials and expands the necessary framework to engineer materials with atomic-level precision.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Trejo, Orlando |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Prinz, F. B |
| Thesis advisor | Prinz, F. B |
| Thesis advisor | Jaramillo, Thomas Francisco |
| Thesis advisor | Zheng, Xiaolin, 1978- |
| Advisor | Jaramillo, Thomas Francisco |
| Advisor | Zheng, Xiaolin, 1978- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Orlando Trejo. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Orlando Trejo
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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