Goutam Kumar
Dalapati
ab,
Lydia Helena
Wong
*c and
Frank Erich
Osterloh
d
aSRM University-AP, Amaravati, 522502, India
bCenter for Nanofibers and Nanotechnology, Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore-117576
cSchool of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. E-mail: lydiawong@ntu.edu.sg
dDepartment of Chemistry, University of California Davis, USA
Discovery and development of affordable renewable energy sources is of paramount importance for the continuous growth of human civilization while minimizing global warming. Converting solar energy to electricity or fuel presents a golden opportunity towards truly accessible, low cost and clean source of energy. Thin film inorganic materials may open up new opportunities in flexible solar cells, wearable technologies and building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) beyond the traditional (silicon-based) solar panels installed on roof tops and solar farms. Conversion of sunlight into useful chemicals such as O2 and H2, enabled by photo(electro)chemical reactions of semiconductor photoelectrodes, also presents a promising opportunity to harvest solar energy. Towards this, we present a collection of selected articles on the recent development of chalcogenide based inorganic materials for solar energy harvesting which were presented at symposium P of the 10th International Conference of Materials and Advanced Technology (ICMAT2019) hosted by MRS-Singapore.
Finally, we thank all contributing authors and reviewers of this themed collection, as well as Dr Christopher Dias (Publishing Editor) and Lynn Murphy (Deputy Editor) of the RSC whose assistance was invaluable to realize this themed collection.
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