Research summary
To become carbon-neutral by 2050, Canada needs scalable, cost-effective technologies to harvest solar energy, convert energy into sustainable fuels (such as hydrogen for transportation), and store energy on both household and grid scales. The discovery of new semiconductor materials will play a key role in Canada’s ability to develop new sustainable energy technologies and achieve technological independence from global supply chains.
As Canada Research Chair in Solid-state Materials for Sustainable Energy, Dr. Abishek Iyer is identifying design principles for non-centrosymmetric structures (those that lack a centre of symmetry) to shed light on their optical properties. He and his research team are also generating low-cost, air-stable compounds for solar cell applications and designing next-generation thin films for electronics. Their work will lead to new techniques for sustainable energy conversion, harvesting and storage, and will lay the groundwork for future studies of clean technologies, like solid-state batteries, catalysis and fibre optics.