Global Research Partnership Centers
2008 Winner Profiles
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
Located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University is recognized as one of the world's leading research and teaching institutions. Established in 1891, Stanford has seven schools in the fields of earth sciences, engineering, humanities and sciences, business, education, law, and medicine. The synthesis of teaching and research is fundamental to Stanford. All faculty do scholarly research, most often in association with graduate students or advanced undergraduates. Stanford is noted for multidisciplinary research within its schools and departments, as well as its independent laboratories, centers, and institutes. More than 4,000 graduate students and many undergraduates are involved in sponsored research at the university.
View Stanford University's presentation at the GRP Symposium
Dr. Michael D. McGehee
Dr. Michael D. McGehee
Dr. Michael D. McGehee, co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltiacs (CAMP), is an associate professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests are patterning materials at the nanometer length scale, semiconducting polymers, and solar cells. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. degree in materials science from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he did research on polymer lasers in the lab of Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger. He has won an NSF CAREER Award, a Dupont Young Professor Award, a Henry and Camille Dreyfus New Faculty Award, the 2007 Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and the Mohr Davidow Innovators Award.
Dr. Peter Peumans
Dr. Peter Peumans
Dr. Peter Peumans, co-Principal Investigator and deputy director of the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltiacs (CAMP), is an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering in the Integrated Circuits Laboratory at the Center for Integrated Systems, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He is an expert in solar cell modeling and characterization, and has two publications among the top 20 most cited papers in the field of solar cells. He holds 10 patents and has five or more pending. He is a co-founder and the Chief Scientific Advisor of NetCrystal, a Silicon Valley startup focusing on low-cost microconcentrator solar cells using a technology developed by Dr. Peumans’ group at Stanford. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award.
KAUST Center Award: The Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltiacs (CAMP)
The Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics’ (CAMP) technological mission is to revolutionize the global energy landscape by developing the science and technology for stable, efficient molecular photovoltaic (solar) cells. Molecular photovoltaic cells can be fabricated at low cost using roll-to-roll coating processes similar to those used to make newspapers. They can be much cheaper than conventional cells because, in addition to low materials costs, the cells can be printed and connected to each other in a high-throughput, integrated architecture. Today’s best organic solar cells have an efficiency of 6.5 % and last approximately 1 year under sunlight. The Center has plans for taking the efficiency to at least 15% and making the cells stable for 10 years or more.
One of CAMP’s primary focus topics will be designing and synthesizing molecules with optimally tailored energy levels and controlled packing to maximize wavefunction overlap, both of which are important for charge carrier and exciton transport. Achieving the highest possible efficiencies with molecular solar cells will also require fabricating the right nanostructures. If the semiconductor domains are too large, the number of excitons reaching the interface is limited; if the donor and/or acceptor domains are isolated, charge carriers can be trapped. Thus, a variety of approaches will be utilized to produce ideal nanostructures. Recent advances in plasmonics will be exploited to increase absorption at donor-acceptor interfaces and enable the use of thinner films, thereby enhancing both the current and fill factor. Methods to print transparent electrodes based on meshes of carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets, as well as silver and ZnO nanowires, will be developed, decreasing the cost of the substrate and collecting electrode. Multijunction approaches will be exploited to obtain ultrahigh efficiency.
The Center’s educational mission is to enable a collection of young scientists at the CAMP institutions and KAUST to solve important problems by providing a solid multidisciplinary fundamental training in science and engineering. To foster interactions with KAUST, the Center will help recruit faculty, invite delegations to visit both campuses, help design and build an organic electronics lab, and encourage KAUST students and faculty to participate in quarterly meetings via teleconferencing and attend annual meetings. Professors and senior graduate students will be sent to Saudi Arabia to help teach until KAUST has a full-size faculty. Postdoctoral researchers who plan to join the faculty at KAUST will be trained in all facets of academic life, including setting up new labs and developing new courses.