Research on advanced energy conversion devices such as solar cells has intensified in the last two decades. A broad landscape of candidate materials and devices were discovered and systematically studied for effective solar energy conversion and utilization. New concepts have emerged forming a rather powerful picture embracing the mechanisms and limitation to efficiencies of different types of devices. The Physics of Solar Energy Conversion introduces the main physico-chemical principles that govern the operation of energy devices for energy conversion and storage, with a detailed view of the principles of solar energy conversion using advanced materials.
- Highlights recent rapid advances with the discovery of perovskite solar cells and their development.
- Analyzes the properties of organic solar cells, lithium ion batteries, light emitting diodes and the semiconductor materials for hydrogen production by water splitting.
- Embraces concepts from nanostructured and highly disordered materials to lead halide perovskite solar cells
- Takes a broad perspective and comprehensively addresses the fundamentals so that the reader can apply these and assess future developments and technologies in the field.
- Introduces basic techniques and methods for understanding the materials and interfaces that compose operative energy devices such as solar cells and solar fuel converters.
About the Author: Juan Bisquert is a professor of
applied physics at the Universitat
Jaume I de Castello and the funding
director of the Institute of Advanced
Materials at UJI. He earned an
MSc in physics in 1985 and a PhD
from the Universitat de Valencia
in 1992. The research work is in
perovskite solar cells, semiconductor
optoelectronics, mixed ionicelectronic
conductors, and solar fuel converters based on
visible light and semiconductors for water splitting and
CO2 reduction. His most well-known work is about the
mechanisms governing the operation of nanostructured
and solution-processed thin film solar cells. He has
developed insights in the electronic processes in hybrid
organic-inorganic solar cells, combining the novel
theory of semiconductor nanostructures, photoelectrochemistry,
and systematic experimental demonstration.
His contributions produced a broad range of concepts
and characterization methods to analyze the operation
of photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices. He is a senior
editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. He
has been distinguished several times in the list of ISI
Highly Cited Researchers. Bisquert created nanoGe
Conferences and is the president of the Fundacio Scito.
He wrote a novel of speculative fiction, The Canamel
Conjecture.
