Research on
Nanostructured Photovoltaic Materials
Funded

Electrical Engineering Professor Alexander Balandin has teamed up with industry and several other universities for research aimed at increasing the photovoltaic efficiency of solar cells based on nanostructured materials. The project, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, involves cooperation of the engineers from CFDR Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama with the researchers from UC Riverside. The research, which is carried out in Dr. Balandin’s Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL) focuses on the design and optimization of the intermediate-band solar cells with the enhanced photovoltaic efficiency. The photovoltaic efficiency is a figure of merit, which shows how effective a given device in converting solar energy into electricity. Nanotechnology, utilized for implementing the intermediate-band solar cells, has the potential to deliver a substantially higher photovoltaic efficiency. One of the project’s goals is the creation of commercially available software tools for accurate simulation of the performance of solar cells. The results obtained in Balandin Group (pictured in the photo) at the preliminary stage of this project have recently appeared in the Applied Physics Letters.