DESIGNER MATERIALS FOR SUSTAINABLE PHOTONIC APPLICATIONS

摘要

Large area transparent electronic or photonic products have experienced decades of accelerating growth and the trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. On top of current major applications such as touch screens and flat-panel displays, the pressing need in developing low-cost thin-film PV cells provides another great driver to increase the demand even further. Unfortunately, current technologies are not based on sustainable materials resources and alternative solutions have to be developed. Here we discuss about the role of fundamental materials/device modelling on cost effective delivery of materials for a new generation of transparent electronic systems, covering sustainable ITO alternatives and band-engineered metal oxides for efficient harvest of solar energy. We show that low cost alternatives based on sustainable and environmentally friendly resources can be delivered cost effectively through a designer" approach combining fundamental modelling and novel thin film processing.