One major objective and challenge of R&D in the large and growing international efforts to utilize solar irradiance to produce renewable energy in the form of photovoltaic electricity and solar fuels, is to discover and develop new approaches that produce “green”, renewable energy at costs that are equivalent to, and preferably much less than, those associated with the use of fossil fuels. Photoactive semiconductors and molecules of various types and structures have played a central role in this endeavor. This presentation will focus on recent reported progress on approaches utilizing quantizations effects in hot excitons in both 2-D van der Waal semiconductors and in p-i-n semiconductor structures containing quantum wells for enhancing solar power conversion efficiences to solar electricity and fuels. The associated scientific, technological, and socio-economic issues will be discussed.

Utilization of hot excitons in semiconductor nanostructures for solar photoconversion to photovoltaics and solar fuels

256th National Meeting (2018)

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