Research Groups
Research Group 1: Full Spectrum Photon Conversion
RG Leader: John Rogers
Affiliated PIs: Paul Alivisatos, Harry Atwater, Paul Braun, Jennifer Lewis, Austin Minnich, Oskar Painter, Ralph Nuzzo, Eli Yablonovitch, Xiang Zhang
Downshifting luminescent concentrator with micro solar cells (J. Rogers & R. Nuzzo, UIUC)
The most substantial near-term opportunity for increase in solar energy conversion efficiency is via exploitation of the full solar spectrum. As first discussed by Shockley and Quiesser, photovoltaic conversion efficiency in solar cells has conventionally been limited by the excitation of electron-hole pairs across a semiconductor energy gap. There is now a well-defined set of physical processes that can in principle overcome this ‘Shockley-Quiesser limit’ of one photogenerated electron-hole pair per photon of above energy gap energy, and these ideas are now receiving increased attention and research. RG-1 researchers are investigating designs and materials that utilize the entire solar spectrum, including phenomena such as up-conversion, down-conversion, down-shifting, and spectrum splitting.
RG-1 research projects include:
- Down-shifting Luminescent Concentrators (Rogers, Nuzzo, Lewis, Alivisatos)
- Theory for Down-conversion (Zhang)
- Crystals for Light and Sound (Painter, Minnich)
- Spectral Splitting (Atwater, Braun, Yablonovitch)
