Energy Leadership Lecture Series: Thom Mason

Science for the Energy Challenge

If we are going to successfully tackle the problem of energy, broadly defined as providing enough energy to support higher standards of living for a growing fraction of the world’s growing population without creating intractable conflict over resources or causing irreparable harm to our environment, then substantial advances in the state of the art in energy generation, distribution, and end use are required.

The Quest – Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World

An international expert on energy, international politics and economics, Daniel Yergin is the co-founder and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy. He is an author and Pulitzer Prize-winner for his book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, which was turned into a PBS mini-series documentary about the economic history of the 20th century. Yergin will dynamically address the conflicting choices and visions for the world economy and the great battle over globalization.

Intermolecular Charge-Transfer States for Organic Opto-Electronics

Intermolecular charge transfer (CT) states at the interface between electron-donating and electron-accepting (A) materials in organic thin films are characterized by absorption and emission bands within the optical gap of the interfacing materials. Depending on the used donor and acceptor materials, CT states can be very emissive, or generate free carriers at high yield. The former can result in rather efficient organic light emitting diodes, via thermally activated delayed fluorescence, while the latter property is exploited in organic photovoltaic devices and photodetectors.

Using Photonics to Get us to the Stars: NASA Starlight – Directed Energy Propulsion for Relativistic Flight

All propulsion systems that leave the Earth are based on chemical reactions. Chemical reactions, at best, have an efficiency compared to rest mass of 10-9 (or about 1eV per bond). All the mass in the universe converted to chemical reactions would not propel even a single proton to relativistic speeds. While chemistry will get us to Mars it will not allow interstellar capability in any reasonable mission time. Barring new physics we are left with few realistic solutions.

Development of Semiconducting Materials for Organic Electronics, Photovoltaics and Sensors

The evolution of organic electronics has now reached the commercial phase, with the recent market introduction of the first prototypes based on organic transistors and organic solar cell modules fabricated from solution.  Understanding the impact of both the organic semiconductor design and processing conditions, on both molecular conformation and thin film microstructure has been demonstrated to be essential in achieving the required optical and electrical properties to enable these devices.  Polymeric semiconductors offer an attractive combination in terms of appropriate solutio

Plan B: Taking the Carbon out of Fossil Fuels Without CO2

There is no evidence that significant reductions in the carbon dioxide emissions associated with power generation will be achieved using current commercial alternatives to abundant and low-cost fossil fuels. The massive infrastructure and equipment changes required for such a transition would require multiple decades if and when a serious commitment is made and an economical transition pathway identified.

Subscribe to