Quantum dots for next-generation photovoltaics (original) (raw)

Nanomaterials form a flexible material platform that has great promise for providing new ways to approach solar energy conversion. The synthesis, investigation, and utilization of these novel nanostructures lie at the interface between chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering. The chemistry community is providing simple and safe solution phase syntheses that yield monodisperse, passivated nanocrystals (NCs) of high optoelectronic quality with a growing degree of control over composition, shape, and structure. These novel structures provide physicists and materials scientists with new avenues towards controlling energy flow. One of the largest scientific challenges regarding solar energy conversion is increasing the efficiency of the primary photoconversion process. In recent years we have studied the process of multiple exciton generation (MEG), where a photon bearing at least twice the energy of the bandgap can produce two or more electron-hole pairs and thereby bypass some wasteful heat production. 1,2