Sol Voltaics AB (Sol), an innovative company developing semiconductor nanowire-based solar cells, has chosen to work with us and the Nanometer Structure Consortium in Lund. Our focus in this collaboration has been to help Sol understand and manipulate the nanowire surface so that the nanowires themselves can be integrated into a solar cell.
For nanowires to become integrated into a product such as a solar cell, they need to be formulated into a medium, very much like a specific molecule in a drug or a pigment in a bucket of paint. This formulation must be such that the specific nanowire properties are retained and the process used must be controllable and repeatable. Since nanowires are quite small, many traditional ways of observation and characterization are not directly applicable. Thus, creative and innovative ways have to be found in order to get feedback on whether a particular formulation is successful.
Our team combines expertise in surface and inorganic chemistry, formulation science and its application to industrial processing. We also offer various characterization capabilities such as ESEM (environmental scanning electron microscopy) FTIR, DLS to name a few. By closely working with Sol in our laboratory, we are making excellent progress in addressing problems specific to nanowires.
