Today roughly 60% of the energy humans produce is lost as waste heat. Thermoelectrics (TE) can convert this heat source into useful electrical power, and thus have the potential to impact our energy future. The key challenge is to increase the TE conversion efficiency, which depends on the TE material properties. The past decade has seen remarkable progress in TE materials, but that have...
Intermediate band (IB) materials are a novel class of materials that, like semiconductors, have a band gap but also have an extra set of allowed electronic levels entirely contained within the semiconductor band gap, allowing sub-gap photon absorption. Solar cells made from such materials have the potential to radically improve photovoltaic efficiencies, similar to triple-junction cells. IB...
