A clean and sustainable energy supply presents one of the major challenges of our times. To provide a large scale availability of renewable energies in the future, a nanoscale understanding of relevant processes in energy generation is of upmost importance. Scanning probe microscopy has developed into a useful and versatile tool for nanoscale materials characterization and has in the recent years made tremendous contributions to energy-related research and development. This symposium will address recent advances, insights, and developments in the energy field, facilitated by scanning probe microscopy. Systems for energy harvesting and storage covered in this symposium will include photovoltaics, batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, thermoelectrics, piezoelectrics, etc. The symposium will bring together scientists working with and on scanning probe microscopy (SPM) methods, including scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and its multitude of extended operation modes, e.g. Kelvin probe force microscopy, scanning capacitance microscopy, conductive force microscopy, etc. Nanoscale effects and phenomena related to optoelectronics, ionics, dynamic processes, doping and charge carrier concentrations, etc. that support the understanding and advances in energy applications are of interest. This symposium also aims at stimulating the development and spreading of new SPM methods for research on energy related materials.
- Photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, etc. at the nanoscale
- Nanoscale phenomena in energy storage devices (batteries, fuel cells, etc.)
- Dynamic processes in energy materials (photovoltaics, batteries, fuel cells, ...)
- Advanced scanning probe microscopy methods
- Electrochemistry at the nanoscale
- Charge separation and transport phenomena
- In-situ experiments on active energy devices
Leite is an Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis. Her group investigates materials for energy harvesting and storage, from their nano-scale structural, electrical, and optical properties to their implementation in devices. Before joining UC Davis, Leite was an associate professor at the University of Maryland, she worked for two years at NIST and was a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science). She received her PhD in physics from Campinas State University in Brazil and the Synchrotron Light Source Laboratory. Leite's work has been recognized on the cover of ~30 scientific journals, by the presentation of >140 invited talks, by the 2016 APS Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS) and the 2014 Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award. Leite’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), etc.
Dr. Sascha Sadewasser is a Research Group Leader at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Portugal. The group works on energy materials, specifically for photovoltaics, batteries, and catalysis, covering advanced solar cell materials and devices implementing nano- and microstructures, thin-film solid-state batteries, and 2D chalcogenide materials. Additionally, scanning probe microscopy methods are developed and applied for the characterization of the optoelectronic nanostructure of energy materials.
Sascha Sadewasser holds a Diploma (1995) in Physics from the RWTH Aachen, Germany and a PhD (1999) from the Washington University St. Louis, MO, USA. After 2 post-docs in Berlin (Hahn-Meitner Institute) and Barcelona (Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica), he became group leader and later deputy department head at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany. After his Habilitation in Experimental Physics from the Free University of Berlin, Germany (2011) he joined INL in 2011, where he is currently co-Chair of the Research Board and member of the Executive Board. Sascha has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers (incl. Nature series, Advanced Materials series, and Phys. Rev. Lett.), with about 4100+ citations (h-index 37). He has published 5 book chapters and 2 books and has been granted 3 patents. He has participated in and coordinated several European and international projects and is a member of several scientific committees and evaluation boards.
Dr. Andrei Kholkin received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from the St. Petersburg State University and Ph.D. degree from the A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, Russia. In consequent years, he held research positions in IFW (Dresden, Germany), EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) and Rutgers University (USA). He is currently a research coordinator and head of the laboratory of advanced microscopy of nanomaterials in the University of Aveiro (Portugal). His group develops multifunctional materials (including ferroelectrics and multiferroics) and scanning probe microscopy techniques. He is a coauthor of more than 500 technical papers in this area including numerous reviews and book chapters. He was a coordinator of three European projects on multifunctional materials and serves as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (TUFFC) and member of editorial boards of several scientific journals. He is a member of the Ferroelectric Committee of IEEE and was a recipient of the “Excellency” award from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. He has been a Technical Committee member of several international conferences and cofounded a new conference series on Piezoresponse Force Microscopy. He was a guest editor of the special issues on ferroelectrics in TUFFC, Journal of Applied Physics and Materials Research Society Bulletin. Dr. Kholkin is a Fellow of IEEE (class 2012), and member of IEEE, Materials Research Society and Portuguese Materials Society.
Alex Redinger is an associate professor at the University of Luxembourg in the Physics and Materials Science Research Unit.
His research interests are:
Thin film solar cells such as Cu(In,Ga)Se2 , kesterites and hybrid perovskites
Scanning Probe microscopy methods (STM, STS, KPFM)
Alex Redinger studied Physics at the RWTH Aachen in Germany. He carried out his PhD in Aachen and Cologne where he studied ion-surface interactions with scanning tunneling microscopy. As a Postdoc he worked at the University of Luxembourg and at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. The overarching topic of his postdoctoral stays where the fabrication and characterization of kesterite solar cells.
In 2016, he was granted with an FNR ATTRACT Consolidator grant, which allows him to build up a scanning probe microscopy group to study the surfaces and interfaces of thin film solar cells.
Since 03.2017 Alex is building up his new group at the University of Luxembourg.
Tom Wirtz