Invited Paper EN-WeM11
Research at the Center on Materials for Energy Efficiency Applications (CMEEA)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 11:20 am, Room A8

As a result of the energy crisis facing the United States, the scientific enterprise must offer solutions, based on fundamental research and engineering, that will ensure sustainable energy resources for the US over the long term. The Center on Materials for Energy Efficiency Applications (CMEEA) addresses this critical challenge by focusing on fundamental research in the three key areas of photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and solid state lighting. CMEEA is composed of 22 senior scientists and additional graduate and undergraduate students at UCSB, NREL, LANL, UCSC and Harvard. CMEEA will take a comprehensive, integrated approach to dramatic improvement in photovoltaic technology, anticipating lower cost manufacturability with organic solar cells, higher performance epitaxial photovoltaics for concentrated PV and truly novel materials and device structures in the longer timeframe that will address both higher efficiency and lower cost. New thermoelectric materials with higher efficiencies are critically important for power generation and waste heat recovery. Material breakthroughs would allow a variety of new applications, such as an attractive compact alternative to internal combustion engines and solid state refrigerators. We are proposing a variety of metal/semiconductor nanocomposites that will allow us to modify the three intrinsic material properties important for high efficiency. Research in solid-state lighting will focus on the dramatic drop in efficiency in the yellow-green region by using nonpolar materials to reduce leakage due to the QCSE and due to the Auger effect.