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UPCOMING SEMINARS
  Matt Sfeir
November 14, 2012 
Matt Sfeir 
Interfacial Charge Transfer in Nanomaterial Based Light Harvesting Devices 
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November 28, 2012
Jia Zhu 
Nanostructured Energy Devices: Phonons, Electrons, and Photons on the Nanoscale
Peter Delfyett    
December 5, 2012
Peter Delfyett
The State of the Art in Silicon Crystal Growth and Bulk Crystalline Properties for Photovoltaic Applications
 
RECENT SEMINARS
David Lea  
October 17, 2012
David Lea
Can Global Warming Be Held to 2 Degrees Celsius above Pre-Industrial? 
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October 10, 2012
Nathan Stoddard
How to Freeze Silicon: A Many-Splendored Problem
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Greetings!

With school back in session, UC Santa Barbara's campus is bustling with activity, and the Institute is no exception.  We are welcoming new Holbrook and Frenkel Fellows for the 2012-2013 academic year, planning our next Summit on Energy Efficiency, and sharing some of other recent highlights in this newsletter.  We hope you will stay in touch with the Institute's latest activities through our website and social media sites. Follow us on Twitter Find us on Facebook

John Bowers         Dave Auston
Director                 Executive Director
Institute News
Save the Date: May 1-2, 2013 for the Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency  
We are excited to announce the dates for the ne
xt Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency! Scheduled for May 1-2, 2013, the Summit brings together leaders from industry, government, and academia to discuss the current and future state of science and technology for energy efficiency. Our theme for the next Summit is Materials for a Sustainable Energy Future.  More details about the program sessions and speakers will be added to the 2013 Summit Website as they become available. Online registration will open in December.

George Holbrook gives a $500K Endowment

Each
year, George and Tara Holbrook support six new graduate students' research in energy efficiency with $60,000 in fellowship funding from the Holbrook Foundation.  We are pleased to announce that in the spirit of continued academic excellence, George Holbrook has generously endowed the Holbrook Fellowship Program with a $500,000 gift that will help fund the Fellowships in perpetuity. Meet the 2012-2013 Holbrook Fellows.     

2012-2013 Frenkel Fellows
  
The Peter J. Frenkel Foundation Fellowships are awarded to PhD students who are close to the end of their graduate studies.  Two fellows are chosen each year to receive $4,000 for research excellence in energy efficiency. Meet the 2012-2013 Frenkel Fellows.
Faculty News & Research

The Latest Research on Plastic Solar Cells   

An example of the complexity of the molecules used in organic semiconductors

There has been a tremendous amount of new research papers coming out of Alan Heeger and Gui Bazan's research groups in the field of small-molecule organic photovoltaics. We wanted to highlight just one of their papers, titled "Solar Cell efficiency, Self-Assembly, and Dipole-Dipole Interactions of Isomorphic Narrow-Band-Gap Molecules" which was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This is one of the first research initiatives we know of that looks at the dipole of a molecule (the positive to negative charge gradient across a structure) and its affect on self-assembly.

 

Self-assembly is a key factor for improving the efficiency of organic solar photovoltaics. The effects of isomers (differing geometric conformations of a molecule), crystallinity, and self-assembly on charge transport are dependent on the most basic molecular properties. Like the dipole forces studied here, a better understanding of these fundamental properties will guide the design of future materials and facilitate the realization of the full potential of organic semiconductors. 

 
The Institute welcomes new faculty

We are pleased to announce a new Institute faculty member, Dr. Jon Schuller, who has joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor.  Jon did his undergraduate studies at UCSB, and then obtained a Ph.D. from Stanford in Applied Physics in 2009.  Most recently Dr. Schuller participated as a Fellow at Columbia University's Energy Frontier Research Center focusing on nanophotonics for use in solar cells and optics. To read more about Dr. Schuller's work click here.
Featured Videos

Onward California - "To Push Back the Frontiers of Science"

John Bowers, Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency, was featured as the first story in a new video series produced by Onward California, a program to reconnect Californians with the importance of the University of California System throughout the state. Watch the video on our website.
Thank you to our Industry Partners
 
     



As members of the Institute for Energy Efficiency's Industry Partners Program, the above companies recognize UCSB's leadership and excellence in research and education in energy efficiency.  The Institute's Industry Partners are integral both in transitioning the research of the Institute to the commercial sector and in helping to identify needs in the marketplace.  This connection is essential to the Institute's mission to affect real change in the energy equation.