Hybrid and Fully Thermoelectric Solar Harvesting

Dario Narducci graduated in Chemistry at the University of Milan, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry. From 1988 to 1990 he was Post-Doctoral Fellow at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. In 1990 he re-joined the University of Milan as an Assistant Professor, moving in 1997 to the Department of Materials Science, University of Milano Bicocca, where he became Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in 2000. His research interests have focused on the physical chemistry of solids and materials with a special emphasis on silicon and on transport properties of disordered materials. Since 2008 Narducci has developed an intense research activity on thermoelectricity and on its applications to microharvesting. In 2010 he was appointed Chief Technical Officer and Board Member of a start-up aimed at the development of silicon-based thermoelectric generators. He is currently involved in the ERC NanoThermMA project, led by the University of Warwick; and is coordinating a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship supporting a collaboration with MIT to develop hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric generators. He is currently serving as the president of the Italian Thermoelectric Society and is the treasurer of the European Thermoelectric Society. Author of more than one hundred scientific publications, Narducci also wrote a book on nanotechnology – and filed fifteen patents as well.

Peter Bermel is an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His research focuses on improving the performance of photovoltaic, thermophotovoltaic, and nonlinear systems using the principles of nanophotonics. Key enabling techniques for his work include electromagnetic and electronic theory, modeling, simulation, fabrication, and characterization. Dr. Bermel is widely published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, and his work has been a recurring topic in international educational activities, as well as publications geared towards the general public. His work, which has been cited over 4900 times, for an h-index value of 26, includes the analysis and the optimization of the detailed mechanisms of light trapping in thin-film photovoltaics; the fabrication and characterization of 3D inverse opal photonic crystals made from silicon for photovoltaics, and their comparison to theoretical predictions; the explanation of key physical effects influencing selective thermal emitters in order to achieve high performance thermophotovoltaic systems; the design of photon recycling for high-efficiency incandescent lighting; and the study of the characterizing behavior and outcomes for learners in online nanophotonic courses using big data analytics.

Bruno Lorenzi received his M.S. in Physics in the group of Prof. Maurizio Acciarri, and then his Ph.D. in Materials Science in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. Dario Narducci, both from University of Milano Bicocca (Italy). Lorenzi’s Ph.D. work focused on the development of nanoengineered silicon thin films for thermoelectric applications. Part of his work was carried out at Stanford University in the NanoHeat group of Prof. Ken Goodson. Lorenzi is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow in the NanoEngineering group of Prof. Gang Chen at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The focus of Lorenzi’s research at MIT is the study of 3rd generation photovoltaic systems, exploiting thermal strategies to overcome the limitations of present technologies. His project is devoted to the development of an efficient hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric device for solar energy harvesting.

Ning Wang is Professor and Executive Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource at Hainan University, China. He received a Ph.D degree from Tsinghua University in 2007, and a M.S. from Chongqing University, China. From 2008 to 2010 he worked at Nagoya University as a postdoctor. From 2007 to 2016 he worked at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, eventually as a full professor. His research interests focus on composite materials applied in perovskite solar cells and uranium extraction from seawater. Now, he serves as an associated editor in the Springer-Nature journal, Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials. He has published more than 80 papers in Science Advances, Advanced Functional Materials, Energy & Environmental Science, Nano Energy, among the others.

Kazuaki Yazawa received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Toyama Prefectural University, Japan. From 1980 to 2009 he served as Mechanical and Thermal Engineer at Sony Corporation (Tokyo) for various electronics products, such as PlayStation3R, VAIOR computers, large screen TVs, and so on. In 2006, he was named for Distinguished Engineer and Thermal Architect in taking technological corporation wide leadership on R&D for Thermal management and heat transfer. After leaving the company in 2009, he transformed his career to academia in USA to further explore the science and technology in thermal energy area. At University of California Santa Cruz as Adjunct Professor (2009-2012), he primarily worked on the optimization of thermoelectric energy conversion with the thermal systems. During the time, he worked not only on additional extensive applications including a concentrated solar co-generation (power, heat) with a thermoelectric device, but also on thermoreflectance thermal imaging for electronic devices, which is also beneficial to characterize the thermal conductivity of the materials. He moved to Purdue University in early 2012. At Birck Nanotechnology Center, he has been bridging a research on nanotechnology-based materials with a system performance enhancement in thermoelectric area. He was recently named for Research Professor. He has been working on combined-heat-and-power (CHP) systems for energy efficient buildings as well, where thermoelectric technology has a potential to boost the efficiency or coefficient-of-performance. He published more than 140 papers in conference proceedings and 30 papers in peer reviewed journals in addition to granted 72 patents worldwide.