Sustainable Energy Materials Research at SSRL

The development of a carbon free economy Is probably the greatest challenge facing humanity in the coming decades. This has spurred significant basic and applied research aimed at developing carbon-free (or nearly so) energy sources and distribution. Here, a big requirement is the discovery and development of new inexpensive and Earth abundant (or sustainable) materials for these technologies. In this talk, I will describe the X-ray based research at SSRL involving materials that can be used for sustainable energy generation, use, and storage. I will first give a broad overview of hard and soft X-ray sciences we are conducting on sustainable energy materials to illustrate the breath of our efforts. I will then focus on two topics demonstrating the multimodal and in-situ approaches needed: Ge anodes for Li-ion batteries and organic photovoltaics ('plastic' solar cells).