Presentation Title: Semiconductor nanowires for artificial photosynthesis
Prof. Peidong YANG presented this talk in the webinar on Materials Science, Engineering and Technology organized by Vebleo
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
Biography
Peidong Yang is a Chemistry professor, S. K. and Angela Chan Distinguished Chair Professor in Energy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a senior faculty scientist at Materials and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Prof. Peidong Yang is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Yang is known particularly for his work on semiconductor nanowires and their photonic and energy applications including artificial photosynthesis. He is the director for California Research Alliance by BASF and for the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute at Berkeley.
Dr. Peidong Yang received his B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology in China in 1993. He then received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1997, and did his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Soon after, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
Prof. Peidong Yang is the recipient of Global Energy Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, DOE E. O. Lawrence Award, ACS Nanoscience Award, MRS Medal, ACS Baekeland Medal, Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, MRS Young Investigator Award, Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics, ACS Pure Chemistry Award, and Alan T. Waterman Award. He is the 2014 Thomas Reuters Citation Laureate for Physics.
Abstract
Semiconductor nanowires, by definition, typically have nanoscale cross-sectional dimensions, with lengths spanning from hundreds of nanometers to millimeters. These subwavelength structures represent a new class of semiconductor materials for investigating light generation, propagation, detection, amplification, modulation as well as energy conversion and storage.
After more than two decade of research, nanowires can now be synthesized and assembled with specific compositions, heterojunctions, and architectures. This has led to a host of nanowire photonic and electronic devices. Nanowire also represents an important class of nanostructure building blocks for photovoltaics as well as direct solar-to-fuel conversion because of their high surface area, tunable bandgap, and efficient charge transport and collection.
In this talk, I will present a brief history of nanowire research for the past 25 years and highlight the synthesis of nanowires using well-defined chemistry. These semiconductor nanowires are then used for artificial photosynthesis, where solar energy is converted and stored in chemical bonds in a solar driven CO2 fixation process.
Graphical Abstract
This talk was delivered in the webinar organized by Vebleo