Progress towards Third Generation Solar Energy Conversion: Can Quantum Dot Solar Cells exceed the Shockley-Queisser Limit?

Matthew C. Beard is a physical chemist (PhD - Yale University) whose interest spans a large range of important physical chemistry problems relating to photoconversion. This includes charge transport in nanoparticle arrays and organic semiconductors, charge and energy transfer, and size-dependent phenomena in quantum sized-materials. He is currently investigating carrier generation and charge transport in assemblies of semiconductor nanocrystals. Dr. Beard received his Ph.D from Yale University in 2002 where he pioneered time-resolved THz spectroscopy for studying charge carrier generation in a variety of nanoscale systems. He joined NREL in 2004 in the chemical and materials science center working with Arthur J. Nozik. The Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) is an energy research frontier center funded by the Basic Energy Sciences division of the Department of Energy and is jointly led by NREL and LANL. CASP’s mission is to explore and exploit the unique advantages of nanostructured materials and solution-based fabrication methods to enable the low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells of tomorrow.