RESEARCH IN HUANPING ZHOU GROUP
Research areas in the Huanping Zhou Group include synthesis of functional inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid materials, inorganic and hybrid electronic device design and fabrication, and applications development for inorganic or hybrid optoelectronics. Our approach is multidisciplinary, involving concepts and expertise from chemistry, catalytic chemistry, materials science and engineering, chemical engineering, physics, and electrical engineering. The chemical synthesis and materials design is carried out in multiple length scales, including building-block synthesis in molecular/nano-scale, thin-film growth in sub-micro-scale, and device design and system integration in macroscopic-scale. These are used as characterization tools for fundamental synthetic chemistry and nano/microstructure studies, thin film growth, interface engineering, photochemistry, and photophysics. The devices of current interest are inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid materials based thin film photovoltaics, solar fuel, thin film transistors, light emitting diode, chemical sensors and photodetectors.
PHOTOVOLTAICS
Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials, and other earth abundant materials are the emerging system with great promise for cost-effective photovoltaics techniques, which requires continuous effort on improving the power conversation efficiency. Our research in the pursuit of highly efficient photovoltaics devices will focus on 1) synthetic approaches for the materials, with investigations on the underlying mechanism that governs the nanostructure formation and thin film growth thermodynamically and kinetically; 2) manipulation of carrier behavior along the entire pathway from the photon absorber to the electrodes; 3) incorporation of functional nanostructure/microstructure to enable optically thick and electrically thin devices, by decoupling of light absorption and carrier collection.
SOLAR TO CHEMICAL
The production of renewable fuels including hydrogen (near term) and hydrocarbons (long term) from sunlight is a promising means of renewable energy storage. It can be realized efficiently by applying a hybrid system in which a solar cell powers an electrolyzer (photovoltaic (PV) electrolysis). The assembly of photovoltaic devices and cathodic/anodic catalysts offers efficient absorption of photons, and spatial separation of photogenerated charges, enable the excited electron population drive a chemical reaction. Our goal is coupling a full-spectrum orthogonal PV layer into redox-active chemical catalysts and electrochemical catalysts, aiming to maximize the complete device efficiency. The research includes 1) Construction of single junction or multifunction solar cells with desired high open-circuit voltages; 2) Design of spatially separated co-catalysts to facilitate redox reaction; 3) interface engineering for minimized electric loss.
MATERIAL DESIGN AND FUNCTIONAL OPTOELECTRONICS
Organic-inorganic hybrid materials possess the characteristics of both inorganic materials (ionic or covalent interaction) and organic materials (hydrogen bonding and van der Waals interaction), and create a composite with enhanced properties relative to combine the useful properties of the two components within a single material. The success of hybrid materials in photovoltaics application evokes further effort on continuous demonstration of other electronics, e.g. sensor, detector, memory, LED, FET. The devices of current interest will provide an excellent platform for fundamental organic-inorganic interaction studies. The involved research work include: 1) design 2D or 3D structures with selective organic or inorganic component; 2) explore novel structural, chemical and physical property of new materials system; 3) develop materials, processes and device applications.
