Quantum dots and nanomaterials: Ingredients for better lighting and more reli...( TEMPE Ariz. Imagine flexible lighti...)

TEMPE, Ariz. Imagine flexible lighting devices manufactured by using printing techniques. Imagine solar power sources equally as reliable and as portable as any conventional power source.

Such advances are among aims of research at Arizona State University to find ways of more effectively harnessing solar power and producing more energy-efficient, durable and custom-designed light sources. The work is now drawing support from two international corporations.

U.S.-based Solterra Renewable Technologies Inc. and Nitto Denko Corp. of Japan are investing more than $3.7 million through grants to help fund the research led by ASU engineering professor Ghassan Jabbour.

Jabbour's work focuses on the use of nanomaterials and quantum dots in solar cells and solid state lighting. Technical advances in this area "will open the way for a new wave of more efficient and portable power and light sources in as many shapes and varieties as designers can imagine," he says.

Jabbour, who teaches in ASU's School of Materials, is doing his research through the Advanced Photovoltaics Center, which he directs. The center is part of the Arizona Institute for Renewable Energy at ASU. Jabbour also is director of optoelectronics research for the Flexible Display Center, part of the university's Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.

Illuminating printing processes

Work funded by the grants will include the study of the materials science, physics and engineering solutions necessary to produce the next generation of solar cells, which will cost less to produce and perform more efficiently, Jabbour says.

The project is an example of the economic benefit a research university can bring to its state. Each year, Arizona universities contribute nearly $1 billion into the Arizona economy from their research, most of which is funded by the U.S. government and entities from outside the state. Research money brought in by universi
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