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This century presents society with the challenge to effectively utilize solar energy – which reaches the Earth each hour in enough abundance to power the entire planet for one year – with efficiencies competitive with other power generation sources. The Columbia University Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) is established in response to this challenge. The ultimate goal of this EFRC is to create enabling technology which will redefine photovoltaic efficiency through fundamental understanding and molecule-scale control of the key steps in the photovoltaic process in organic and hybrid materials. The program builds on the significant success of the NSF-sponsored Columbia Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) and on vibrant partnerships with the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) along with strategic partnerships with University of Arkansas, Purdue University, and University of Minnesota and collaborations with Tel Aviv University. The EFRC will capitalize on the synergy between theory, measurement, and materials that has distinguished the Columbia Nanocenter in the development of fundamental understanding and control of charge transport in molecular and nanoscale systems. The overall Columbia EFRC goal is to develop enabling technology needed to realize breakthrough photoconversion efficiencies for nanostructured thin film photovoltaic systems.
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