Ginger’s project, which will receive $1.25 million, focuses on developing new methods to alleviate the impact of defects in perovskite solar cells. Perovskites are printable crystalline compounds that can harvest sunlight and convert it to electricity at efficiencies comparable to silicon-based semiconductors used in today’s solar cells. Perovskite solar cells could be printed on roll-to-roll printers like newspapers, reducing manufacturing costs. They are a rapidly growing branch of solar cell 91×ÔÅÄ and development, and , operated by the CEI, includes facilities for developing and testing these technologies, including a 30-foot-long multistage roll-to-roll printer.

Atomic-scale defects at perovskite surfaces can reduce their performance. Previous 91×ÔÅÄ by Ginger’s group has shown that surface “passivation” — treating perovskites with different chemical compounds — can “heal” these defects and improve the efficiency of perovskite solar cells. But when these perovskites are assembled into solar cells, the current-collecting electrodes can create new defects, sapping efficiency. With this new funding, Ginger and his collaborators, Seth Marder and Carlos Silva at Georgia Tech, will develop new chemical passivation strategies, and new charge-collecting materials, that allow perovskites to reach their full potential while still remaining compatible with low-cost manufacturing.

Gamelin’s project, which will receive $200,000, aims to modify solar cells so they can collect high-energy photons more efficiently. Today’s solar cells can convert low-energy photons to electrical power efficiently, but the high-energy variety is converted at very low efficiency — a major source of energy loss. Gamelin’s team has developed materials that can absorb high-energy photons and emit twice as many low-energy photons, a process termed “quantum cutting.” Their SETO project seeks to integrate these materials as thin layers on the surfaces of solar cells. These surface coatings would essentially “convert” high-energy photons to low-energy photons, allowing their absorption by the solar cell and potentially doubling the current generated by the solar cell. With the new funding, Gamelin’s team will work to develop scalable deposition techniques and prototype large-area solar cells.

The funds from the Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office are part of $28 million in awards for 25 projects in photovoltaics and related fields to boost efficiency and reduce costs in solar energy, according to a March 22 from the office. The first set of selections from this program, announced late last year, included more than $2.3 million awarded to UW projects.

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The new center builds on the UW’s record of innovative, collaborative and cross-disciplinary 91×ÔÅÄ in the materials sciences, and on a legacy of timely institutional and state investments in materials 91×ÔÅÄ at the UW. Initial 91×ÔÅÄ will focus on nanocrystals and thin films — toward goals such as developing new materials for applications in clean energy, photonics and quantum computing.

“The primary goal of the UW MRSEC is to empower the next generation of science and engineering leaders,” said center director and UW chemistry professor . “This will involve engaging and supporting students and postdoctoral 91×ÔÅÄers — and giving them the 91×ÔÅÄ and educational experiences, training and cross-disciplinary mentorship that they will need to forge careers on the cutting edge of materials science.”

The center will embark on new 91×ÔÅÄ and training endeavors to:

• Pursue so-called “moonshot” projects, which are 91×ÔÅÄ endeavors with potentially high payoff, but are generally beyond the feasibility of smaller 91×ÔÅÄ grants awarded to individual professors.
• Implement new cross-disciplinary training and mentorship programs for doctoral students and postdoctoral 91×ÔÅÄers, including opportunities to conduct 91×ÔÅÄ with the center’s industrial and international partners, and with partners at and at other run by the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Broaden educational and 91×ÔÅÄ opportunities for UW students and 91×ÔÅÄers, including advanced training on new equipment purchased with center funds.
• Expand outreach and mentorship efforts to high school students from underrepresented minorities to encourage them to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education as undergraduates.
• Implement comprehensive outreach efforts to recruit military veterans at the UW and at local community colleges into 91×ÔÅÄ and education for STEM careers.
• Provide support for additional doctoral and postdoctoral 91×ÔÅÄers.

The center’s inaugural team of 15 faculty come from a variety of disciplines across engineering and the physical sciences. In addition to their home departments in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences, 10 are also faculty members in the CEI and 11 in the MolES. This diverse cohort reflects the center’s goal to foster novel and innovative collaborations across traditionally separate disciplines.

The center will make use of existing 91×ÔÅÄ and education space across the UW campus, including in the . The CEI and the MolES, both of which are headquartered in that building, will provide access to equipment for center 91×ÔÅÄ and training.

The center’s outreach activities — both within the UW and around the region — emphasize education and training for materials science careers. Each year it will host a program for students from around the country to conduct 91×ÔÅÄ with a UW faculty member during the summer. In addition, center scientists will mentor pre-college students from underrepresented minority groups, providing support and resources to help prepare them for college and encourage them to pursue STEM education. In an entirely new endeavor, the center also will set up programs to engage veterans in center 91×ÔÅÄ, very few of whom pursue STEM education and careers.

“With this NSF support, the center will bring new opportunities in STEM education to groups that are underrepresented in STEM careers,” said UW professor of materials science and engineering , who is the center’s executive director for education and outreach. “Programs like these are expanding access to science.”

The center will focus on two broad 91×ÔÅÄ areas, in nanocrystals and thin films.

The first goal, co-led by Gamelin and Luscombe and including eight initial faculty members, is to pursue new approaches to engineer defects in nanocrystals such as semiconductor quantum dots. Though “defects” often have a negative connotation, in materials science they are opportunities to create substances with novel and technologically attractive properties. Precisely targeted defects or impurities, for example, could — rather than heat up — when hit by a laser. These new materials could also lead to products such as solar-concentrating window films that absorb photons from sunlight and shunt them to photovoltaic cells for energy conversion.

The center’s other focus is the creation of new ultrathin semiconductor materials with unique properties. This team will include seven initial faculty, and is co-led by associate professor of physics and materials science and engineering and assistant professor of physics and electrical engineering . This 91×ÔÅÄ creates thin sheets of materials — often just one layer of atoms thick — and investigates the unique quantum-mechanical properties revealed when these sheets are layered together. These layered materials could form the basis of new for applications in clean energy, optoelectronics and other applications. In fact, using this approach, one UW team recently discovered a .

“We chose nanocrystals and ultrathin semiconductors because they promise to yield basic, fundamental and impactful discoveries in materials science,” said Gamelin. “And those advances will fuel new innovations and applications in growing industries — from quantum computing to clean energy.”

Gamelin, Xu and Fu — along with assistant professor of chemistry and electrical engineering professor — represented the UW team in Washington, D.C., during the final leg of the multi-stage competition for NSF-MRSEC support. Funding for the UW’s Molecular Engineering Materials Center began Sept. 1. The NSF supports 20 MRSECs across the nation, and the UW’s is one of only two on the West Coast.

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For more information, contact Gamelin at gamelin@chem.washington.edu or 206-685-0901.