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CFN People

Electronic Nanomaterials

Contact: Charles Black

Among renewable energy options, sunlight has the highest ultimate power capacity, with a total average solar energy flux of ~30,000 terawatts impacting the land areas of the world. Solar energy has significant potential to contribute to the necessary growth of renewable power, but its high cost compared to fossil fuels and its intermittency pose barriers to widespread utilization. Materials research breakthroughs for cost-effective solar electricity and electrical energy storage, as well as efficient solar-to-fuel conversion are all required for sunlight to assume the role of society’s primary energy source.

The goals of our CFN research program in Electronic Nanomaterials involve implementing nanostructures for photovoltaic, photochemical, and electrochemical energy conversion. Our control of internal nanometer-scale material dimensions provides a vehicle for fundamental understanding of underlying physical mechanisms and a platform for new material and device architectures with improved energy conversion performance over conventional approaches.

Our breadth of scientific expertise positions the CFN Electronic Nanomaterials group to advance this research agenda. Key group strengths include our ability to synthesize new nanostructured forms of both inorganic and organic semiconductors, our leading expertise in nanostructured device fabrication by self assembly, and our experience in traditional high-resolution lithography and nanofabrication. Our research plans highlight an increasing reliance on optical spectroscopy methods for advancing understanding of photoconversion processes. Material and device integration are always the end-goal of our research efforts, uniting our diverse individual interests and skill sets.

Associated Group Facilities

The Electronic Nanomaterials Group oversees three significant laboratory facilities available to our User Community. The Nanofabrication Facility supports thin-film material and device processing in a cleanroom environment, as well as electrical device characterization. The Materials Synthesis Laboratories include capabilities for inorganic nanomaterial synthesis by solution-phase chemistry and chemical vapor deposition methods, organic polymer synthesis, as well as thin-film processing of both organic and inorganic thin films. The Ultrafast Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory supports spectroscopy of photoinitiated processes at sub-picosecond time scales.

Group Members

Staff

  • Charles Black, Group Leader, Thin-film electronic device fabrication; photovoltaic devices; self-assembly processes; device electrical characterization.
  • Fernando Camino, Low-noise electrical device characterization; focused-ion beam; thin-film device nanofabrication.
  • Robert Grubbs, Polymer Synthesis; block copolymers; controlled radical polymerization; hybrid organic-inorganic materials.
  • Weiqiang Han, Inorganic synthesis of nanostructured materials by chemical vapor deposition and solution-phase processing; high-res electron microscopy.
  • Ming Lu, Electron-beam lithography; x-ray optics;  plasma etch processes; thin-film nanofabrication; electron microscopy.
  • Chang-Yong Nam, Nanostructured semiconductor devices; solar cells; inorganic nanowire synthesis; nanofabrication; electronic transport & optoelectronic characterization.
  • Matthew Sfeir, Optical spectroscopy, time-resolved and nonlinear methods, photocurrent/optoelectronic microscopy; carrier dynamics.
  • Aaron Stein, Electron-beam lithography; imprint lithography; thin-film nanofabrication; electron microscopy.

Postdoctoral Fellows

 

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Last Modified: November 10, 2011
Please forward all questions about this site to: Pam Ciufo.

 


DOE, Office of Science One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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