B.A., University of Oregon, 2003. Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara (Galen D. Stucky). Postdoctoral, California Institute of Technology (Nathan S. Lewis and Harry A. Atwater). Honors and Awards: Barry M. Goldwater Scholar (2001-2003), NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2003-2006), UC Chancellors Fellow (2007), Kavli Nanoscience Institute Prize Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-2009)

Primary Research Interests: Materials for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage

The Boettcher Group will consist of a diverse group of chemists, physicists, and engineers who share a common passion for addressing the significant challenges associated with the capture and storage of solar energy in a collaborative interdisciplinary environment. We will utilize inorganic synthesis, nano and microscience, surface chemistry, simulation, physical measurement, and device fabrication to design, build and study new materials and structures. Several specific research thrusts are outlined below.

Semiconductors with nano- and microstructures designed for solar energy conversion.

Inorganic semiconductors are ideal materials for solar energy conversion– many strongly absorb visible light generating long-lived excited charge carriers that can be separated and collected using interfacial electric fields. The key challenge, however, is to develop materials systems that are not only efficient, but also durable and scalable (i.e. low-cost and consisting of earth-abundant elements). The precise control of three-dimensional structure and composition will be explored as one route to achieve these goals, as illustrated in the figure below. For example, in a traditional planar device, photogenerated carriers must traverse the entire thickness of the cell in order to be collected before recombination. This cell thickness is dictated by how much material is necessary to absorb the incoming light, ~ 1/?. In a rod-array cell, carriers must only reach the rod surface before recombination, thus enhancing the performance of materials that are charge-collection limited and broadening the range of materials suitable to achieve high efficiencies. Particular materials systems of interest include solution-synthesized semiconducting transition metal oxides and VLS-grown III-V compound semiconductors.

Heterogeneous Electrocatalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis.
If sunlight is to provide a significant fraction of the worlds’ power consumption, methods must be developed to store solar energy at a massive scale for use when the sun doesn’t shine. Arguably, the best way to store this energy is in the form of chemical bonds. Nature does this in photosynthesis – albeit with low overall efficiencies. The goal of this research thrust is to synthesize well-defined nanoscale inorganic electrocatalysts that facilitate molecular transformations useful in energy storage (e.g. hydrogen and oxygen evolution from water) and then study fundamental structure-activity relationships. These catalysts can then be integrated with semiconductor light-absorbers to create completely inorganic artificial photosynthetic systems.