Prof Nick Quirke, Principal,College of Engineering, Mathematical & Physical Sciences
is pleased to invite you to the
UCD NANOVATION Launch Event
Taking place on Wednesday 14 October 2009
Clinton Auditorium, Global Irish Institute & UCD Engineering and Materials Science Centre, Belfield Campus
The aim of the Nanovation Labs is to drive research, discovery and innovation at the nanoscale through partnership between industry and academia, by giving access to the equipment and researchers in the labs, tomultinational companies, as well as SMEs and startup companies.
This special event willlaunch the Nanovation Lab grouping, comprising state of the art NanoImaging Labs, an Atomic and Molecular Modeling lab and a new Solar Cell Nano-Fabrication & Device lab.
The launch event programme includes a special lecture relating to Energy from Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn.
There will also be talks from industry speakers including Donald FitzMaurice, Director ePlanetVentures, John Hartnett, IrishTechnology Leadership Group, Mazhar Bari, Chief Executive Officer Solar Print. Talks will be followed by a tour of the new facilities with details of how industry can access them.
The day concludes with Inaugural / Introductory Lectures from three new Professorial staff who are key players in UCD’s NANOVATION initiative.
The Agenda Programme runs from 8.45 a.m. – 2 p.m.
(full details also given in the attached)
Attendees are welcome to attend for all / part of this event.
RSVP: by email togillian.reilly@ucd.ie by
Friday 2 October 2009
Agenda Programme
8.30 – 8.45
Arrival & Registration
Clinton Auditorium
8.45 – 9.00
Nanovation Opening and Overview
Professor Nick Quirke Principal,
UCD College of Engineering,
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Clinton Auditorium
9.00 – 10.00
'Industry Driven'
Donald FitzMaurice,
Director, ePlanetVentures,
Mazhar Bari,
Chief Executive Officer, Solar Print
Clinton Auditorium
10.00 – 10.35
Special Lecture from keynote speaker,
Walter Kohn, Nobel Laureate
‘A World Predominately Powered by
Solar and Wind Energy’
Clinton Auditorium
10.35 – 10.50
Coffee
Clinton Auditorium
10.50 - 11.45
Tour of NANOVATION Labs facility
Materials Science & Engineering Centre
11.45 – 12.00
Introductory Lecture from
Ravindranathan Thampi,
SFI Airtricity Associate Professor in Solar Energy
‘Perspectives on Solar Energy Conversion to Electric Power and Chemical Feedstocks for Energy Storage’
Clinton Auditorium
12.00 – 1.00
Inaugural Lecture from Giovanni Ciccotti,
Professor of Computational Physics
‘Challenges in Molecular Dynamics Simulations’
Clinton Auditorium
1.00 – 2.00
Inaugural Lecture from David Coker,
SFI Stokes Professor and ACAM Director
‘The Quantum Mechanics of Photosynthesis:
How Nature Powers Her Planet’
Clinton Auditorium
Lecture Titles & Abstracts
Special Lecture from keynote speaker,
Walter Kohn, Nobel Laureate
'A World Predominately Powered by Solar and Wind Energy'
It is widely recognized that the fossil fuels, oil and natural gas, which currently provide almost 60% of the world's energy consumption, will be largely exhausted in a few decades. At the same time world population will have increased by an estimated 30 to 40 percent by mid-century.
To avoid a catastrophic energy shortage by the mid-century, these fuels must be replaced by ecologically acceptable and sustainable alternatives. Solar and wind power appear to the author the most promising candidates. Although, at the present time they constitute only about 2% of the global energy consumption, their production has recently been rising by a spectacular 30 to 40% per year, or a factor 15 per decade and 225 in 20 years.
This arithmetic suggests that the entire deficit stemming from the impending exhaustion of oil and gas might be compensated in 20 years by a determined global effort to expand solar and wind energy production.
The lecture will examine this speculation and finds that it provides useful guidelines for the second half of the century and beyond.
At the same, time the author finds a very likely serious energy deficit during the decade or decades of transition from the fossil regime to the solar - wind regime, which will require other means to bridge this threatening gap.
Ravi Thampi Introductory Lecture
Perspectives on Solar Energy Conversion to Electric Power and Chemical Feedstocks for Energy Storage
In the sensitized solar cell field, the UCD team is placing their emphasis on the design and synthesis of stable ‘donor-linker-acceptor’ type organic dyes, and Q-dots with light absorption extending up to near infrared region of the solar spectrum. These sensitizers with much higher extinction coefficients will be cheaper than the currently used Ru-complexes. They also enable us to use thinner mesoporous semiconductor layers. Another area of focus is the low temperature processing of semiconductor oxides. Advancement in these two areas will enable the development of next generation flexible low cost DSCs and its realization will benefit Irish SMEs engaged in manufacturing DSC and OPV panels. The effort to produce semiconductor oxide layers through polymer template route is also directed towards the same goal. The latter mentioned route also opens up the possibility for building sensitized tandem solar cell devices in the next phase. Novel photocatalytic materials with optimal visible light absorption and penetration depths are required to photo-split water as well as initiate hydrogenation of CO2 through artificial photosynthesis. Modification of existing oxides and generation of new materials are both necessary to achieve this goal within a reasonable period of time.
Professor Giovanni Ciccotti Inaugural Lecture
Challenges in Molecular Dynamics Simulations
We show that Molecular Dynamics simulations (MD) are a full predictive chapter of theoretical physics by showing what legitimate approximations bring to them. We then discuss the models that can be exactly solved (in numerical sense and within numerical precision) by MD and how the solution proceeds both in equilibrium and non- equilibrium conditions. We give a glimpse of the challenges that can be confronted by outlining the general procedure with two significant case studies, the first taken from biological simulations showing the importance of minor substitutions in biological behavior of proteins, the second reconstructing without phenomenological assumptions the onset of convective rolls in liquids. These examples demonstrate the sort of complexity that can now be treated with MD simulations. Reliable simulations like these are critical for modelling processes important to Irish industry R&D particularly for Medical and Energy applications.
Professor David Coker
Inaugural Lecture
The Quantum Mechanics of Photosynthesis:
How Nature Powers Her Planet
Nature's photosynthetic light harvesting systems operate at efficiencies way beyond those currently achievable with existing photovoltaic technologies. Recent experiments suggest that these remarkable efficiencies arise because nature employs long lived quantum coherent superposition states in which photo-excitation is spread over many different chlorophyll antenna molecules. These photosynthetic antenna array complexes are thus exquisitely designed biological structures that act essentially as lossless nanoscale quantum energy transmission grids.
Quantum coherent superposition states lie at the heart of everything that is "weird" about quantum mechanics like Schroedinger's cat being simultaneously both alive and dead, and provide the fundamental basis for futuristic technologies, for which we now have many proof-of-principle demonstrations, like quantum computers, encryptors, and transporters.
Generally, unless very special measures are taken, the coherent superpositions of quantum states of large complex systems that are created when they are excited have but a fleeting existence. In photosynthetic antenna complexes nature has found a way to prolong the existence of these states and exploit their properties. Remarkably, other recent experiments on conducting polymer materials also show evidence for long lived coherent superposition states playing a significant role in their technologically important properties suggesting that this phenomenon is ubiquitous.
After reviewing what is known of these systems, the lecture will describe the findings of computer simulations that employ our new mixed quantum-classical methods in studies that begin to explore the nanoscale design principles that nature has evolved to take advantage of the remarkable properties of these coherent superposition states. The fundamental understanding obtained from these studies may be significant for design of new materials for energy and other applications. The appreciation of the importance of quantum coherence on the nanoscale in biological energy harvesting and conversion processes represents a paradigm shift for biomimetic design of photovoltaic, and other technologies. Collaboration between Irish industry R&D and academia will be critical for developing technologies that take advantage of this new fundamental knowledge. Success in this collaboration will be transformative.