Patents by Inventor Donald J. Werder

Donald J. Werder has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20100236614
    Abstract: Semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) are promising materials for applications in photovoltaic (PV) structures that could benefit from size-controlled tunability of absorption spectra, the ease of realization of various tandem architectures, and perhaps, increased conversion efficiency in the ultraviolet through carrier multiplication. The first practical step toward utilization of the unique properties of NCs in PV technologies could be through their integration into traditional silicon-based solar cells. Here, we demonstrate an example of such hybrid PV structures that combine colloidal NCs with amorphous silicon. In these structures, NCs and silicon are electronically coupled, and the regime of this coupling can be tuned by altering the alignment of NC states with regard to silicon band edges. For example, using wide-gap CdSe NCs we demonstrate a photoresponse which is exclusively due to the NCs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 5, 2010
    Publication date: September 23, 2010
    Applicant: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL SECURITY, LLC
    Inventors: Victor I. Klimov, Alp T. Findikoglu, Baoquan Sun, Donald J. Werder, Milan Sykora