Outreach

We have an existing collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with Tim Coutts, NREL fellow, and a well known expert in inorganic photovoltaics [CWY03], related to IRG-I on II-IV-V Chalcopyrites. A second collaboration is with Brian Gregg, well regarded for fundamentals studies of transport in organic semiconductors, particularly as they relate to solar cells [Gre03, GH03, Gre04b, Gre04a], which is part of the seed project proposed on organic thin film solar cells. NREL will not receive any funds from this MRSEC, but we plan that two ASU postdocs supported by it will be mostly stationed at NREL. There will be mutual benefit to the two institutions: expertise in the respective institutions is somewhat complementary; for example, NREL has world-class expertise in thin-film solar cell work, while ASU has world-class expertise in understanding and controlling quality, microstructure, and defect properties of thin films, as well as theory support. Each can benefit from the knowledge of the other.
We also have an active collaboration with the DoE Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, primarily through Tom Picraux at LANL, who is CTO of CINT, and an adjunct faculty at ASU, and one of the PIs on the MRSEC (Goodnick). We currently have an active CINT grant with LANL which provides LANL facilities towards a project on growth of self-assembled nanostructures (quantum dots and wires) on Si, which overlaps with the seed project on hot electron solar cells. It is expected that CINT collaboration will be expanded under the MRSEC program to help provide support for the photovoltaic as well as other IRG’s enabled through nanotechnology based solutions.
In addition to the National Laboratory collaboration, several industry groups are associated with this MRSEC. These include:

CombiMatrix Corporation has a current collaboration with Woodbury in electrochemically patterned methods for the production of catalysts, and has written a letter of support for this project. Their electrode matrices will be used extensively in IRG II.
Boeing, Jet Propulsion Labs, and NASA-Glen have a large project in high-temperature PEM fuel cells with PI Gervasio. All have expressed strong support of the MRSEC and have indicated that successful outcome of the work in IRG-III could significantly alter the direction of their programs. They have expressed a willingness to play a support role in modeling and testing aspects of this IRG. Gervasio has also has much recognition in fuel cell circles and is the person at ASU who is most frequently approached by outside industrial operations (Boeing ST micro-electronics, KITECH, etc.) for advice, hardware evaluations, and assistance in applications. He is often included in different "thinktank" workshops sponsored by Industrial concerns, such as the Gamechangers of Shell Oil, and most recently his election (3 yr) to the Technology Council of ST Microelectronics.
Ghassan Jabbour is presently serving as Director of the Advanced Photovoltaics Center (APC) funded by Arizona State University, and as part of the APC, he is forming a photovoltaics industry consortium primarily related to organic PV. Nitto Denko and VTT Electronics have already agreed to join, and discussions are currently underway with Dow Corning, Dupont, Merck and General Electric. The industry partners will provide a membership fee as well as access to processing and characterization facilities.
Arizona State University is presently a partner with BP in the DoE Solar America Initiative related to photovoltaics, and in bioenergy related research related to biofuels. As part of the present MRSEC program, we will enhance this on-going relationship to support all of the proposed IRGs.
Honda Corporation is currently funding catalyst stability research in PI Sieradzki’s group, and has expressed support for this project.
Professor Wiley Youngs, well known for research in polymer membranes, has written a letter of support, expressing a willingness to collaborate on ASU's protic ionic salts fuel cell concept.

The present MRSEC effort is strongly supported by several international collaborations with universities and industries abroad. One of ASU’s strongest international partnerships in the area of renewable energy is with the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM, Tech de Monterrey). For the past two years, ASU and ITESM have partnered in the area of renewable energy through a jointly funded program of binational research. In 2006, a joint program of research was funded in the area of bioenergy between ASU and ITESM (for approximately $200K USD). In 2007, two projects between ASU and ITESM researchers were funded in bioenergy and fuel cell related research, which overlap the current MRSEC IRG’s.

At present, planning for a binational renewable energy lab is underway between ASU and ITESM, which the MRSEC is expected to play a major role in. The main focus areas of the binational lab are fuel cells, bioenergy and photovoltaics, which strongly overlap with the present MRSEC program of research. Laboratory facilities in both institutions will support this effort. In particular, ITESM has laboratory facilities supporting research in catalysis and fuel cells, as well as laboratory facilities devoted to solar energy research, which will be available for joint research projects in this area. Also, ITESM has a strong reputation in entrepreneurial and technology commercialization, which will provide a strong technology transfer component to the proposed MRSEC research. A joint degree program in renewable energy between ITESM and ASU is also proposed as part of the binational research laboratory.

Besides partnerships in Mexico, ASU has a strong commitment to international collaboration in renewable energy, through the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement and the newly established School of Sustainability. Primary focus areas for global engagement are Mexico and China, where in the latter case, several partnerships between Chinese companies and ASU have developed in the area of photovoltaics. Suntech is one of the companies in China that ASU is presently developing partnerhips with, and we expect the MRSEC effort to be closely coupled with these initiatives in Asia focused on China.