Supercapacitor and battery and Sensors and solar cell
Project Leaders: Y. Lin
Supercapacitor and battery:Carbon based nanomaterials such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene have received extensive attention in the past decades due to their intrinsic excellent mechanical, electrical, thermal, and energy related properties. Therefore, when incorporating these materials in different applications, the mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of the material systems could be significantly improved. Currently, we are synthesizing and characterizing graphene aerogel with metal oxide nanowire hybrids, as shown in Figure 1. In the future, we are trying to integrate this type of hybrids in carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites for embedded energy storage
Sensors and solar cell: Vertically aligned nanowires have high specific surface area and enhanced material property when used for device application. Currently, I have successfully synthesized vertically aligned ZnO, TiO2, BaTiO3, and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 nanowires on various substrates. One of the typical nanowire array synthesized is shown in Figure 2. Due to their functionalities, I am currently trying to develop gas, temperature, and pressure sensors based on these vertically aligned nanowires. Besides, I am also trying to develop dye-sensitized solar cells as well as organic solar cells using these functional nanowires to achieve enhances performance. The fundamentals of how the structure geometry relations will be investigated by both theoretical modeling and experimental testing.
Fig. 1 Graphene aerogel with nanowire.
Fig 2. Vertically aligned nanowires.