Colloquium

Abstract:

Energy is of high demand in the 21st century and natural resources are depleting. Therefore, it is of interest to produce energy in ways that are not harmful to the environment. The process of converting the sun's light into electrical energy is a clean way to produce energy.  Currently, organic photovoltaic cells (O.P.V.'s) have come into interest as they are relatively inexpensive to produce and they can be built on flexible substrates.  Presently, O.P.V.'s are not efficient enough to warrant wide-scale production.  In order to increase the efficiency of O.P.V.'s we have numerically modeled several O.P.V. structures.  We used the First Reaction Method and the Finite Element Method in order to model the following O.P.V. structures: bulk hetero-junction , planar hetero-junction, mixed hetero-junction, and interdigitated.  The research indicated that interdigitated O.P.V. structures produce significantly greater photocurrent than bulk hetero-junction and planar hetero-junction configurations.

Upcoming colloquia:

• 12/2/09: Steve Fredlund ('92'), "Assessing Market Risk"

• 9/16/09: Meet and Greet the Math Department Faculty
• 9/30/09: Al Garver, Augsburg College, "(0,2) Graphs and Young Tableaux"
• 10/7/09: Ben Jordan, Harvard University, "The procession of math science and art"
• 10/21/09: Su Doree, Jody Sorensen, John Zobitz, Augsburg College, "Spring 2009 Course Preview"
• 11/4/09: Ken Kaminsky, Augsburg College, "Force of Mortality, Elves, Vampires, and More"
• 11/18/09: Ben Hoffman & John Singleton, Augsburg College, "Numerical Optimization of Organic Photovoltaic Cells"