I-Corps: Development of a Scalable Bottom-Up Nanofabrication Platform

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Solar energy is clean, abundant, and renewable, but faces challenges mainly due to the high manufacturing and installation costs of photovoltaic modules. Finding novel fabrication techniques for solar energy conversion that could increase efficiency and lower manufacturing cost is a primary challenge in meeting the world's future energy needs in a renewable fashion. This project aims to conduct research on a scalable bottom-up nanofabrication platform that enables industrial-scale production of self-cleaning, broadband antireflection coatings on a large variety of photovoltaics-relevant substrates, such as single-crystalline and multicrystalline silicon, glass, GaAs, and GaSb. This platform combines the simplicity and cost benefits of bottom-up colloidal self-assembly with the scalability and compatibility of top-down microfabrication. The proposed activity is aimed at enabling less expensive and more efficient crystalline silicon solar cells. The proposed activity, if successful, may lead to reduced manufacturing cost and increased conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. Improving the conversion efficiency of solar cells facilitates to reduce the environmental impact and the consumption of oil, natural gas, and fossil fuels-generated electricity. Improved fundamental understanding of subwavelength-grating diffraction may also result from the proposed research. Besides renewable energy, the scalable bottom-up nanofabrication platform has the potential to advance many other areas that depend on the creation of large-area periodic nanostructures, ranging from all-optical integrated circuits to high-efficiency light emitting diodes.