Teaching Silicon New Tricks

Description
Silicon is cheap, easy to handle and fairly simple to manufacture, moreover it shows optimal thermal and good mechanical properties. Silicon is today the electronic material per excellence. This environmental friendly material is the most used semiconductor for solar or photovoltaic applications and its role in the optoelectronic industry is becoming more and more important. Nevertheless the increasing demand for new, innovative and more efficient devices is driven scientists to explore new functionalities in Si-based materials. This is the object of increasing interest by researchers and industries and can be realized by exploring Si new properties, that is by "teaching silicon to do what silicon is currently not able to do". Our aim, here, is to provide a theoretical framework for the prediction and the study of novel behaviors in Si-based systems for practical applications. The goal is to identify new Si-based materials and devices architectures with improved performance. Understanding and controlling these new properties is becoming a crucial step. In this process, theory plays a fundamental role, allowing to describe the behavior of complex systems through efficient first-principle methods, with an accuracy that complements experimental observations. 
Thus, in this seminar, I will give a comprehensive understanding of some "tricks" that have been adopted in order to make silicon do what silicon has never been asked to do:
i. In photonics, where the main interest lies on the possibility to merge electronics and photonics on the same chip, we have to render Si a good light emitter, improving for instance its nonlinear optical properties.
ii. In thermoelectric applications, where Si has to be modeled in order to improve its capacity to convert heat into electrical energy and vice versa.
iii. in photovoltaic cells, where we have to add to Si new features in order to maximize solar radiation harvesting and to minimize occurrence of loss thermalization processes.
Organised by Francesco Priolo