Events Calendar

Distinguished Speaker Series

Speaker: Supratik Guha - Director of Physical Sciences, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center

Talk Title: Photovoltaics Research at IBM

Abstract: In this talk I will describe research in three different areas in photovoltaics that are ongoing at IBM Research--concentrator photovoltaics, solar cells from earth abundant materials, and nanowire based solar cells.  Concentrator photovoltaics, which can have the highest power conversion efficiencies at the system level, has suffered from the lack of the benefits of economies of scale, which is rapidly allowing flat panel systems to lower costs. Yet, provided the manufacturing of these systems can be highly automated, CPV stands a very good chance for cost reduction--the challenge here is one of simplicity of construction, weight reduction and optical and thermal system design.  Earth abundant thin films, that can support manufacturing rates of >10-20 GW/yr is an important (and increasingly fashionable) topic of research.  I will describe results that we have in this area with the copper-zinc-tin-sulfide (CZTS) system.  Finally, I will describe some results of our work on silicon nanowire photovoltaics, where the benefits are one of enhanced light trapping and, possibly, the ability to effectively have devices that are small enough so that generated carriers can be collected without relying upon minority carrier diffusion.  However, a big drawback here has been the detrimental role of surfaces and interfaces that has prevented nanowire solar cells (and other nanostructured solar cells) from demonstrating high efficiencies.


Biography: Supratik Guha is the Director of the Physical Sciences Department at IBM Research and in this capacity is responsible for overseeing IBM’s worldwide research strategy in the physical sciences. His technical work, over the past dozen years, has been in the area of new materials for silicon microelectronics where he has been responsible for some of the key material advances that are now part of IBM's common platform high k metal gate technology, developed by IBM with its alliance partners, and representing major changes in the way that a silicon transistor is built.  More recently, his own research work has been on new materials for energy conversion devices.  As a manager, he has established many successful research programs at IBM including ones in silicon nanophotonics, thermal physics, photovoltaics, and nanowire based technologies.  Supratik  is also an adjunct professor of materials science at Columbia University.  Prior to joining IBM in 1995, he worked on semiconductor lasers at the 3M Corporate Research Labs from 1992-95  He received his Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Southern California in 1991, and a B. Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1985.   He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.


Host: Center for Energy Nanoscience and Technology

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Marilyn Poplawski