Symposium R: Bandgap Engineering and Interfaces of Metal Oxides for Energy

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Bandgap Engineering and Interfaces of Metal Oxides for Energy

This symposium is designed to provide a forum for the discussion of the fundamental physics underpinning energy conversion and utilization using metal oxides, and to identify basic materials science issues that must be addressed for future energy technologies.  Exploration and exploitation of interface phenomena is vital to address current limitations in energy conversion, storage, and generation.  Oxide semiconductors abundantly exist on earth crust, and are safe and environmentally friendly.  In recent years, wide-bandgap oxides and metal-oxide semiconductors and their nanostructures have emerged as an important class of materials with a rich variety of chemical and physical properties, and often exhibiting unique phenomena.  For energy applications, oxides have been widely considered for batteries, fuel cells, water splitting, as well as transparent conductors.  However, the relatively large bandgap is a well-noted research challenge of using oxides for energy-conversion applications.

The symposium will focus on controlling chemical and physical processes during non-equilibrium growth and at the surfaces and interfaces of oxides to functionally tailor new physical properties, including narrowing the bandgap; increase efficiency of visible light absorption; enhance photocatalytic reaction; and enhance carrier transport.  Equally important is the exploration of the interfacial and mesoscopic phenomena in the emerging energy applications with an emphasis on providing new functionality to state-of-the-art materials.  The emphasis will be on the latest advances in new material design, novel synthesis and characterization of complex metal-oxide materials, oxide interfaces, band alignment at interfaces between dissimilar oxide materials, ionic/electronic conduction, energy transfer and transport, new energy-conversion and storage materials concepts and mechanisms, fundamental understanding of the chemical and physical processes in such applications, and ab initio and computational studies.

Session topics will include:

  • Fundamentals of photo-electrical and chemical energy conversion and storage
  • Oxide interfaces for conversion and photochemical applications
  • New material concepts for bandgap engineering and enhancing solar light absorption
  • Ionic/electronic conduction in oxides and interface proximity effects
  • Atomic-level control for doping and alloying during synthesis
  • Defect-related properties and control
  • Defect interactions at oxide interfaces accompanying redox reactions
  • Chemical stability of engineered oxides in reactive environments
  • High-mobility transparent conducting oxides
  • Oxide materials for third-generation solar cells
  • Correlated electron phenomena in oxides for energy
  • Novel characterization techniques, including those for surfaces and interfaces
  • Ab initio and computational modeling

Invited speakers include (partial list):

Scott Chambers (Pacific Northwest National Lab), William Chueh (Sandia National Labs), Sergei Kalinin (Oak Ridge National Lab), Igor Kosacki (Shell), Mikk Lippmaa (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan), Norman Mannella (Univ. of Tennessee), Paul C. McIntyre (Stanford Univ.), Bruno Meyer (Univ. of Giessen, Germany), Janusz Nowotny (Univ. of Western Sydney, Australia), Shriram Ramanathan (Harvard Univ.), Ramamoorthy Ramesh (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Annabella Selloni (Princeton Univ.), Robert Schafranek (Darmstadt Univ. of Technology, Germany), John Turner (National Renewable Energy Lab), Bing Wang (USTC, China), Su-Huai Wei  (National Renewable Energy Lab), Hao Zeng (SUNY-Buffalo), Zhenyu Zhang (Univ. of Science and Technology of China), Thomas F. Jaramillo (Stanford Univ.).

Symposium Organizers

Shengbai Zhang
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
110 Eighth St.
Troy, NY 12180-3590
Tel 518-276-6127, Fax 518-276-6680
zhangs9@rpi.edu 

Gyula Eres
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Materials Science and Technology Division
MS 6056, Bldg. 3150
Oak Ridge, TN 37831
Tel 865-574-5494, Fax 865-574-4143
eresg@ornl.gov 

Nagarajan Valanoor
University of New South Wales
School of Materials Science and Engineering
Sydney NSW 2052, Australia
Tel 61-2-9385-4263
nagarajan@unsw.edu.au 

John D. Baniecki
Fujitsu Laboratories
Energy Materials Laboratory
10-1 Morinosato-Wakamiya
Atsugi 243-0197, Japan
Tel 81-46-250-8362, Fax 81-46-248-8812
baniecki@labs.fujitsu.com 

Wenguang Zhu
University of Tennessee
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
401 Nielsen Physics Bldg.
1408 Circle Dr.
Knoxville, TN 37996-1200
Tel 865-974-9512, Fax 865-974-7843
wzhu3@utk.edu 

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