Dr. Edward Hartley Sargent, KAUST Investigator and Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of Toronto, discusses how he plans to create low-cost paint-on cells that convert solar rays into electricity.
Today, solar cells present a compromise: some are efficient; others are inexpensive; but none are both efficient in power conversion and at the same time low in cost. Dr. Sargent‘s research will lay the foundation to eliminate this solar energy compromise by applying KAUST resources combined with his research and his intellectual drive and to create efficient and low-cost solar cells.
Like KAUST, Dr. Sargent’s research is innately interdisciplinary. His research spans materials chemistry, device fabrication, device optimization, careful optoelectronic characterization, and even ultrafast spectroscopic investigation.
From an early age, Dr. Sargent embraced the opportunity to solve problems though a set of mathematical tools and physical ideas. It was this desire that led Dr. Sargent to pursue a bachelor’s in Engineering Physics from Queen's University and a doctorate in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Photonics) from the University of Toronto.
Dr. Sargent has been described as one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation – a valid claim about a man who believes that nanotechnology is "turning fascinating science and growing technological agility into real applications that transform people's lives and society."
Can renewable energy sources like solar move from "alternative" to "primary" in the near future? What would be a realistic timeline?
The move is underway right now as producers of solar cells scale up production of gradually lower- and lower-cost conventional photovoltaic cells. That's the evolution of the industry. The revolution will come when technologies disrupt this curve with the combination of high efficiency and low cost.
How do you see advanced photovoltaic technology working for Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of petroleum?
Saudi Arabia is an exceptional place -- not only for its fossil fuels but also for its vast solar resource. Its landmass receives enough solar energy to power the entire world's energy needs many times over. Saudi Arabia has also established itself also a proven leader in the management and export of energy resources. This will surely be a crucial skill as solar goes primary and goes global.
Your University of Toronto research group has developed plastic solar cells that use nanotechnology to convert the sun’s energy into power with more efficiency. How important is this achievement? Is this a foundational step toward even better technology?
This is an absolutely foundational step towards better technology. We are very excited about developing advanced, low-cost infrared-optimized solar cells that can be paired with visible photovoltaics to harvest the sun's rays. It is both efficient and economically sound technology.
Your research group is working on ways to paint light-sensitive nanoparticles on glass. What are the potential applications for this research? What does this mean for photovoltaics?
The applications range from portable power, (for example a wearable battery booster) all the way to large-scale solar power conversion that would contribute to the larger energy grid. We keep the main idea in focus -- the sun's full spectrum deserves efficient harvesting.
Other than the obvious – abundant sunshine – what about KAUST makes it a good location for solar energy research?
KAUST’s location for solar energy research is valuable for three reasons:
- Exceptional facilities, including a focus on a large-scale solar R&D installation, that go far beyond the small-scale prototyping most universities can achieve.
- Faculty and graduate students attracted from around the world with a focus on excellence without compromise.
- An institutional architecture that blends core scientific and engineering areas (departments) with project-oriented centers. This is the ideal matrix for the highly interdisciplinary research that is associated with advanced photovoltaics.
What are the immediate benefits to society of having more efficient sources of solar power, and what advances do you hope to see in the coming years?
The immediate benefit, even deployed on the small scale, is portable power. The bigger and longer-term benefit is for the world to have an ongoing solution to its energy needs instead of living off a finite supply of stored energy.
You have noted that solar research is "innately interdisciplinary" and spans materials chemistry, device fabrication, and device optimization. What role can a focus on solar energy at KAUST contribute to the global research and development community working on photovoltaic technology development and implementation?
KAUST's Solar Energy Center will play a unique role. It will combine world-leading science that will investigate new physical phenomena and new materials with outstanding engineering research through a large-scale R&D solar installation. In addition, it will have best equipment within which to judge new solar innovations on a level playing field.
How will the relationship between KAUST and the University of Toronto benefit researchers, and what is your role in this collaboration?
Each day my students at University of Toronto strive to strengthen our ties with KAUST as it emerges. We help find faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students; we provide input on how to deploy KAUST's exceptional resources to create a unique world-class infrastructure; and we build stronger ties through exchanges of personnel, including spending many weeks of the year on the KAUST campus.
A few years ago, BusinessWeek described how your research group "stumbled onto" the discovery that a plastic solar cell could absorb ultraviolet light. Talk about the role that serendipity plays in research, and how the KAUST Investigator award contributes to your ability to learn more about nanoscience.
Serendipity plays a crucial role. We have just published the first report after harvesting multiple excitons in the photocurrent flowing in a device. Only by becoming interested in the ultraviolet (UV) behavior of this photodetector - not directly relevant to photovoltaics but of broad scientific interest - did we stumble on this remarkably sensitive UV detector. Being a KAUST investigator gives us the foundational support for our joint investigations with KAUST-based scientists to allow us to follow our intuitions, pursue surprising results in the lab, and discover.
You wrote a book called The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives. In the four years since it was published, how has nanotechnology further changed our lives? How will the work you are undertaking, along with the work that will begin soon at KAUST, benefit society?
The field has advanced vastly in the few years since the book was published. In medicine, nanotechnology-based biosensors are leading to the early, sensitive, and specific detection and classification of diseases. In optical imaging, highly sensitive light detectors based on nanoparticles have advanced by leaps and bounds and are nearing commercialization. And in energy, researchers at KAUST, University of Toronto, and indeed around the world are rapidly moving toward efficient, low-cost solar cells.
