Speaker: Prof. Harry Atwater, California Institute of TechnologyRegister
Meeting Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Time: 6:00 PM PST (Zoom, on the Internet)
Cost: none
Reservations: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/prof-harry-atwater-solar-fuels-and-carbon-capture-tickets-353346708517

Summary: I’ll talk about coupling CO2 capture and conversion, Captura’s approach to scalable direct capture of CO2 from ocean water, and then finally about progress on solar-driven carbon dioxide reduction by the Liquid Sunlight Alliance DOE Hub program.

Bio: Prof. Harry Atwater is the Otis Booth Leadership Chair, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, and Director, Liquid Sunlight Alliance at the California Institute of Technology. Atwater’s scientific interests span light-matter interactions from quantum nanophotonics, two-dimensional materials and metasurfaces to solar photovoltaics and artificial photosynthesis. Atwater is an early pioneer in nanophotonics and plasmonics; he gave the name to the field of plasmonics in 2001. He currently serves as Director of the Liquid Sunlight Alliance, a DOE Solar Fuels Hub project, and was the founding Director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. He also chairs the Breakthrough Starshot Lightsail Committee and is a PI of the Caltech Space Solar Power Project.

Atwater has laid the foundations for plasmonic and negative index metamaterials, as well as tunable nanophotonic materials and metasurfaces. He has pioneered principles for light management and high efficiency solar cell design.  He was the co-founder of Alta Devices, a solar photovoltaics company in Santa Clara, CA that holds the current world record for 1 Sun single-junction solar cell efficiency as well as solar module efficiency.

Scheduled Meeting