Optical Material Science: Electrodynamics of Nanoscale Assembly, and Lifetime and Degradation Science for Photovoltaics – Roger H. French

Date: Mon. April 30th, 2012, 12:30 pm-1:30 pm
Location: Rockefeller 221

The optical properties and electronic structure of materials are critical to the development of new optical materials,(1) novel processes of nanoscale assembly, and the viability of advanced energy technologies. They are the origin of the electrodynamic van der Waals-London dispersion (vdW-Ld) interactions (2) which play a universal role in wetting, interfacial energies, and nanoscale assembly.(3) The challenge of nanotechnology is for science to span more than nine orders of magnitude in dimension. Advanced energy technologies, with their 25 or 50 year capital lifetimes, challenge us to span 24 orders of magnitude in time so as to control degradation processes, damage accumulation, and end of life failure, a field we call Lifetime and Degradation Science (LDS).(4,5) These scientific challenges, spanning the length and time domains, constitute an important frontier of mesoscale science.(6)
1. R. H. French, H. V. Tran, Annual Reviews Of Materials Research, 39, 93-126 (2009).
2. R. H. French, et al. “Long Range Interactions In Nanoscale” , Rev. Mod. Phys., 82, 2, 1887-1944, (2010).
3. R. H. French, J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 83, 2117-46 (2000). K. van Benthem et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 227201, (2004). R. Rajter, et al., Phys. Rev. B., 76, 045417 (2007).
4. U.S. Department of Energy, Science for Energy Technology, Aug. 2010.
5. R. H. French, et al., Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 95, 2077-86, (2011).
6. U. S. Department of Energy, BESAC subcommittee on Mesoscopic Materials and Chemistry, 2012.