At Least 1,000X Thinner than a Human Hair
Brian A. Korgel, Ph.D
Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, TX
Abstract:
The last century witnessed the development of two classes of materials—polymers and semiconductors—that dramatically changed people’s lives. A new class of materials—nanomaterials—has emerged with the potential to create a wide range of new technologies because of their unique combination of properties. For example, semiconductor nanowires have attributes of polymers like mechanical flexibility, light-weight and low cost, combined with the useful electronic and optical properties of semiconductors into one material. Nanowires can be embedded in polymer hosts, spun into fibers, or dispersed in solvents and printed on substrates like organic materials. They might be utilized to create functional textiles with unprecedented capability, such as fabrics with impressive structural integrity capable of generating power from the sun as in a photovoltaic device or store energy in the form of a battery. Nanocrystals of various semiconductors can also be made and formulated into paint that can be used to deposit semiconductor films at low cost onto large-area, mechanically flexible and light-weight substrates for a next generation of low-cost solar cells. This presentation will highlight nanomaterials we have been studying in my laboratory for lithium ion battery and photovoltaics applications and some of the challenges facing commercial use.
Biosketch:
Brian A. Korgel is Temple Professor #1 and Matthew Van Winkle Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD from UCLA in 1997 and was a post-doctoral fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain, the Université Josef Fourier in France and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He also directs the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Next Generation Photovoltaics and has co-founded two companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies. He works in the field of nanomaterials chemistry and has published more than 190 papers. He has received various honors including most recently the 2012 Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).