Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NAROBAND (Environmental friendly narrow band-gap colloidal nanocrystals for optoelectronic devices)
Reporting period: 2017-06-01 to 2019-05-31
The lack of the materials with low band-gap initiated the project NAROBAND which aimed on the development of environmentally friendly materials that absorb in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most important, NAROBAND main objective is the fabrication of high efficient optoelectronic devices operating in such long wavelengths as we experience a burst of emerging near and mid-IR technologies which spans from health and environmental applications (solar cells, LED’s, lasers, photodetectors etc.). The materials that are currently used for NIR application are prohibitively expensive for mass production. Therefore, NAROBAND aimed in the synthesis of low-cost materials such as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) for the development cutting edge-technologies for a variety of optoelectronic devices.
NAROBAND successfully delivered both low cost materials but most important state of the art devices with the use of colloidal quantum dots. In particular, NAROBAND delivered environmentally friendly materials such as Ag2SxSex-1 QDs and Bi2Se3 crystals with plasmonic resonance and mid-gap state absorption in the infrared respectively. Moreover, NAROBAND delivered a gamut of state-of-the-art optoelectronic devices. We first demonstrate the record efficient solar cell device which operated at 0.7 eV and its thermophotovoltaic operation with efficiency up to 6%. We demonstrate a word record efficiency LED operating in NIR based on colloidal quantum dots while for the first time we successfully obtain single exciton gain and stimulated emission at the telecommunication wavelengths. Moreover, the NIR detection, NAROBAND used environmentally friendly material such as Bi2Se3 to fabricate a high efficient photodetector operating in NIR.
Undeniably, NAROBAND has contributed to the so-called frontier technologies. NAROBAND delivered devices beyond the state of the art. In detail, NAROBAND demonstrated a record efficiency solar cell device based on quantum dot operating below 1eV. Moreover, delivered one of the best LED technologies in the market (considering all the existing materials) operating in NIR while paved the way for a revolution in the telecommunication field as NAROBAND succeed to deliver a material technology that has direct impact to European citizens. Finally, the technologies that the project NAROBAND has developed are slowly integrated in the market share by means of attracting the interest of worldwide companies.