Progress and challenges in solar energy conversion using semiconductor/liquid junctions

Semiconductor/liquid contacts provide the best known wet chemical means for converting and storing sunlight into chemical fuels and/or electrical power. Good progress has been made recently in understanding intefacial electron transfer processes, in evaluating the properties of nanoscale, nanostructured metal contacts on semiconductors, in functionalization of certain semiconductor surfaces, including Si and InP, and in the use of nanocrystalline mesoporous materials such as dye-sensitized titania. The presentation will focus on these topics and will highlight the outstanding problems that need to be solved to obtain a viable, inexpensive, practical solar energy conversion device from such systems.