CENTER FOR RE-DEFINING PHOTOVOLTAIC EFFICIENCY THROUGH MOLECULE SCALE CONTROL (EFRC)

  • Director: James Yardley

  • Years Active: 2009-2014

  • Co-PIs: Luis Brus, George Flynn, Colin Nuckolls, Jonathan Owen, David Reichman, Mike Steigerwald, Xiaoyang Zhu, Tony Heinz, Philip Kim, Abhay Pasupathy, Simon Billinge, Irving Herman, Latha Venkataraman, Dirk Englund, Jeff Kash, Ioannis Kymissis, Richard Osgood, Kenneth Shepard, James Hone, Chee Wei Wong, Asfraf Alam (Purdue), Matt Sfeir (BNL), Mark Hybertsen (BNL), Charles Black (BNL), Eran Rabani (Tel Aviv University), Andrew Crowther (Barnard)

  • Stated Mission: The Columbia EFRC created technology which will redefine photovoltaic efficiency in organic and hybrid systems through fundamental understanding and molecule-scale control of the key steps in the photovoltaic process.

    The EFRC focused its expertise in chemical synthesis, fabrication, manipulation, and characterization to systematically develop understanding of the primary photovoltaic processes in organic and hybrid materials. In addition, it sought to develop and quantitatively investigate nanostructured materials with potential for extracting multiple electrical charges from a single absorption event, thus establishing a scientific basis for moving the efficiency of these solar cell devices well beyond the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit.

    The Columbia EFRC was a collaboration between Purdue University (Prof. Ashraful Alam) and the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The research program of the EFRC centered around four multi-site, multi-disciplinary, and interlocking research thrusts. Each thrust represented an integrated effort incorporating theory, materials, and measurement.

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