News

The Arthur J. Nozik Festschrift

April 26, 2007

The American Chemical Society recently honored Arthur Nozik, a senior research fellow within the Chemical and Biosciences Center at NREL, with a special publication of The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. The Arthur J. Nozik Festschrift (Volume 110, Issue number 50) issue paid tribute to the scientific accomplishments of the internationally respected researcher. The German term “festschrift” is commonly used to celebrate a senior scholar's birthday with a special edition of original papers on topics relevant to the honoree's research.

This volume celebrated Nozik’s 70th birthday and is The Journal of Physical Chemistry B's first Festschrift to honor a scientist who does all of their research at a national laboratory. "I am grateful to the editorial board of The Journal of Physical Chemistry for this great honor and especially to the many colleagues from all over the world who contributed their excellent research articles on many topics of considerable interest to me," Nozik said.

During the past 30 years, Nozik has earned a leading position in the interdisciplinary fields of photoelectrochemistry, semiconductor-molecule interfaces, nanoscience and quantum size effects in semiconductors and carrier dynamics in semiconductor quantum dots and quantum wells. He has written more than 160 peer-reviewed publications, 35 book chapters and proceedings and has edited or co-authored several books in these fields. Nozik also has been awarded 11 U.S. patents.

Nozik's accomplishments include the invention of a novel photochemical diode for splitting water to generate hydrogen, and the identification of several important solar photoconversion approaches using hot carrier effects, size quantization, and superlattice concepts that could, in principle, enable a quantum jump in efficiency of solar energy conversion. Most recently this includes the prediction and verification together with the NREL Chemical Sciences team of a new important optoelectronic effect in quantum dots, called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), whereby absorption of a single photon can efficiently generate multiple electron-hole pairs (excitons)

Nozik, who joined the Laboratory in 1978, has provided leadership to NREL's research team developing dye-sensitized TiO₂ thin-film solar cells. He was the discoverer of Cd₂SnO₄ as a new thin-film transparent conductor for PV solar cells. He also played a key role in the establishment and growth of the Energy Technology Division within the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and received the 2002 Energy Research Award of ECS. Nozik is also the Lead Principal Investigator of a recently submitted $25 million proposal to DOE’s Office of Science titled “Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion” that would be conducted within the newly established Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory that includes NREL, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines.

Nozik was a senior editor of The Journal of Physical Chemistry from 1993 - 2005. He is a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Chemical Society, Electrochemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Materials Research Society and Society of Photo Optical Instrument