Event
MSE Seminar - Prof. Dunbar P. Birnie, III, Rutgers University
Friday, May 8, 2009
1:00 p.m.
Room 2108, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Bldg.
Annette Mateus
301 405 5207
amateus@umd.edu
Templated Titania Coatings for Flexible
Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
This presentation will start with a brief overview of photovoltaic energy collection and examine ways that nanotechnology may influence the overall efficiency of energy capture for a variety of different device architectures. This will lead to a discussion of the so-called Grätzel cells or Dye Sensitized Solar Cells and how different components of the architecture combine to yield relatively high efficiency solar power collection. This discussion illustrates the competing needs of electrical conduction through the solid phase and the simultaneous conduction through a second interpenetrating electrolyte phase. We have addressed these competing drivers by examining the use of structural templates to give hierarchical porosity structures that can improve the system characteristics. The talk will also cover some of our efforts to extend our templated solar coatings to a flexible format and the tighter constraints that are imposed in those cases.
