Abstract
The development of next-generation energy resources that are reliable and economically/environmentally acceptable is a
key to harnessing and providing the resources essential for the life of mankind. Our research focuses on the development
of novel semiconductor platforms that would significantly benefit energy harvesting, in particular, from light and heat. In
these critical applications, traditional semiconductor solid-state devices, such as photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric
(TE) devices based on a stack of single-crystal semiconductor thin films or single-crystal bulk semiconductor have
several drawbacks, for instance; scalability-limits arise when ultra-large-scale implementation is envisioned for PV
devices and performance-limits arise for TE devices in which the interplay of both electronic and phonon systems is
important. In our research, various types of nanometer-scale semiconductor structures (e.g., nanowires and
nanoparticles) coupled to or embedded within a micrometer-scale semiconductor structure (i.e., semiconductor nanomicrometer
hybrid platforms) are explored to build a variety of non-conventional PV and TE devices. Two core projects
are to develop semiconductor nano-micrometer hybrid platforms based on (1) an ensemble of single-crystal
semiconductor nanowires connected to non-single-crystal semiconductor surfaces and (2) semimetallic nanoparticles
embedded within a single-crystal semiconductor. The semiconductor nano-micrometer hybrid platforms are studied
within the context of their basic electronic, optical, and thermal properties, which will be further assessed and validated
by comparison with theoretical approaches to draw comprehensive pictures of physicochemical properties of these
semiconductor platforms.
