Title:

Rational Nanomaterials Design for Energy Technology

Speaker:

Dr. Yi Cui

Affiliation:

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University

When:

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 3:00:00 PM   Add to Calendar

Where:

MARC Building, Room 101/Auditorium

Host:

Min Zhou
min.zhou@me.gatech.edu
404-894-3294

Abstract

Addressing the world energy problems requires a whole set of energy technologies to carry out energy transformations involved in photons, electrons, ions and phonons, in order to perform energy generation, storage and usage. The capability to tailoring materials at the nanoscale affords exciting opportunities to engineer materials for understanding and controlling those energy transformation processes. My group has been rationally designing nanomaterials to interact effectively with photons, electrons and ions, impacting technology applications in photovoltaics, transparent electrodes and batteries. First, I will present our general design of nanocone and nanodome structures for efficient photon management, resulting in excellent improvements in the amorphous Si, III-V and dye solar cells. Second, I will introduce new type transparent electrodes based on metal nanowire meshes, which are engineered through low-cost and scalable processes to have high photon transmittance and high electron conduction. We demonstrate excellent performance and offer a low cost solution compared to indium tin oxide used in the existing technology. Third, I will discuss nanomaterals design for high-energy batteries. A variety of silicon nanostructures have been developed including nanowires to maximize efficiency of electron and ionic insertion with facile strain relaxation, which enable lithium ion battery anodes with 10 times higher specific charge storage capacity compared to current technology. Lithium sulfide cathode materials embedded into conducting mesoporous carbon have also been developed to overcome multiple fundamental challenging problems associated with sulfur compounds, which afford a pathway towards 10 times higher specific charge cathodes.

Biography

Yi Cui received BS in Chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China in 1998, Ph.D in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2002. After that, he worked as a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2005 he became an Assistant Professor in Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. In 2010 he was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure and named as David Filo and Jerry Yang Faculty Scholar. His current research is on nanomaterials for energy storage, photovotalics, topological insulators, nanobiology and environment. He has received the Wilson Prize (2011), the David Filo and Jerry Yang Faculty Scholar (2010), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2010), the Global Climate and Energy Project Distinguished Lecturer (2009), KAUST Investigator Award (2008), ONR Young Investigator Award (2008), MDV Innovators Award (2007), Terman Fellowship (2005), the Technology Review World Top Young Innovator Award (2004), Miller Research Fellowship (2003), Distinguished Graduate Student Award in Nanotechnology (Foresight Institute, 2002), Gold Medal of Graduate Student Award (Material Research Society, 2001).

Notes

Refreshments will be served.