Page 22 - CFM_Newsletter_CY22

Toward high efficiency Intermediate band solar cells: Materials and current issues
th
Dr. Nazmul Ahsan, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, July 29
Prof. Nazmul Ahsan is currently a Project Associate Professor at the RCAST, The
University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in electronic engineering from The
University of Tokyo in 2002. He explored about the high efficiency intermediate
band solar cells in his talk. New semiconductor materials and new quantum
nanostructures are exploited in order to achieve high-efficiency photovoltaic solar
energy conversion reaching 50% under concentrated sunlight and innovation on
alternative energy technologies. In the talk he addressed, Intermediate band
solar cells with photocurrent enhancement by two-step infrared photon
absorption using quantum dot arrays or highly mismatched semiconductor alloys,
multi-junction solar cells with improved spectral matching for sunlight by stacked
semiconductor junctions and hot carrier solar cells with high output voltage by hot
carrier extraction. His research interests also include high-efficiency photovoltaic devices, molecular beam
epitaxy of compound semiconductors and 2D chalcogenides, materials and device characterization,
computation and machine learning as applied to materials science.

Engineering Structure and Functionality at Molecular Resolutions Towards High-
Performance Affinity Biosensors

Dr. Shivashankar Krishnamoorthy, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST),
Luxembourg, August 30 th

Dr. Shivashankar Krishnamoorthy, Nano-Engineered Biodevices Group,
Materials Research and Technology Department, Luxembourg Institute of
Science and Technology (LIST), Luxembourg, explained how molecular
diagnostic devices detect and profile molecular biomarkers with ultra-high
sensitivity, quick response time and desired form factors. The speaker presented
their recent advances in engineering the sensor interface at molecular length
scale as means to delivering multiple advantages, including the high sensitivity
of nanoscale transducers, enhanced analyte mass transport, enhanced analyte
capture, ultralow sample volumes and miniatured sensor footprints. He
addressed the challenge of creating and engineering sensor interfaces down to
the scale of few nanometres, reliably and reproducibly across areas spanning
several cm2, also provided particular attention to plasmon-enhanced spectroscopic sensors, consisting of
sub-10nm metal gaps that can concentrate and enhance electromagnetic (EM) fields by several orders of
magnitude. The talk ended with the presentation of their development of a tool which can quantify nano-bio
interactions in real-time, the work pitches interesting avenues to explore in the design of nanostructured
biosensors with the goal of practical, and high-performing biosensing configurations for molecular
diagnostics.

CFM Newsletter Jan. – Dec. 2022 22 Vol – 2