Vivian Ferry Seminar
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, Vivian Ferry, will deliver a department seminar titled, “Nanoscale Light Management: Directing Photoluminescence in Light-Emitting Metasurfaces and Solar Cells,” Thursday, September 4th at 1:25 p.m. in room B75 Amundson Hall.
Abstract
Light management continues to be of great interest to society, impacting wide-ranging application areas including photovoltaics, displays, quantum devices, thermal regulation, security, healthcare, environmental sensing, and agriculture. Optical materials with new functionality and highly tailored spectral, polarization, and angular response are needed to both meet application demands and reveal new optical phenomena. This talk will discuss routes to direct and shape luminescence from nanoscale optics to large-area applications. The first part will discuss how an ensemble of light emitters can be combined with metasurfaces to create directional, polarized photoluminescence. The second part will discuss new routes to scalable, large-area nanofabrication of metasurfaces, demonstrating both roll-to-roll patterning and the ability to create light-emitting metasurfaces from a variety of inks (including semiconductor nanocrystals). The final part of the talk will discuss directional light emission in the context of solar energy conversion, and particularly the emerging area of agrivoltaics, where semi-transparent, light-emitting composites are used to shape the spectral and angular characteristics of sunlight for electricity generation and agricultural production.
Vivian Ferry Biography
Vivian Ferry is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. She received her S. B. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2006, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 2011, working with Prof. Harry Atwater. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Paul Alivisatos at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2011 to 2014. Her research focuses on light-matter interactions in nanoscale materials, and her specific research interests include light management in solar energy conversion, switchable metamaterials, and nanoscale chirality. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, the Marion Milligan Mason Award for women in the chemical sciences, the Ovshinsky fellowship in sustainable energy from APS, and was named as one of Technology Review’s 35 Innovators under 35 in 2016.
