Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S³TEC)

Director

Gang Chen

Lead Institution

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year Established

2009

Mission

To advance fundamental science and to develop materials for harnessing heat from the Sun and terrestrial sources and converting this heat into electricity via solid-state thermoelectric, thermophotovoltaic, and thermogalvanic technologies.

Research Topics

solar (photovoltaic), solar (thermal), solid state lighting, phonons, thermal conductivity, thermoelectric, defects, mechanical behavior, charge transport, spin dynamics, spintronics, optics, mesostructured materials, materials and chemistry by design, synthesis (novel materials), synthesis (scalable processing)

Materials Studied

Materials: semiconductor, organic semiconductor, wide band-gap semiconductor, metal, oxide, polymer, rare earth elements, ionic liquid, porous, optoelectronic and metamaterial, transparent conductor

Interfaces: organic/semiconductor, organic/oxide, organic/metal, metal/semiconductor, metal/oxide, semiconductor/semiconductor, gas/solid, liquid/solid, solid/solid

Nanostructured Materials: 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D, nanocomposites

Experimental and Theoretical Methods

X-ray diffraction and scattering, X-ray spectroscopy, electron microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, near-field scanning optical microscopy, lithography, surface science, neutron diffraction and scattering, neutron spectroscopy, laser diagnostics, molecular dynamics (MD), density functional theory (DFT), monte carlo (MC), quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, mesoscale modeling, multiscale modeling