Lateral Heterojunction-based Solar Energy Conversion
Solar energy technology combines materials tailored to exploit the physics at their junctions which enable light energy collection, and extraction as electricity. A promising class of candidate materials is the layered semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). They are atomically thin, strong, flexible, and demonstrate remarkable efficiency for light energy conversion. Our lab was the first to synthesize the in-plane structure, where different monolayer TMDs are joined at a pristine one-dimensional interface. I study the motion of electrons carrying absorbed photon energy at this novel interface and how techniques as yet unexplored with TMDs can enhance the performance of next-gen solar cells, and other optoelectronics critical to future clean energy research.
Advisor: David Cobden, Physics
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