Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2011
Volume 56, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2011; Dallas, Texas
Session B8: Critical Materials for Global Science and Technology |
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Sponsoring Units: FIP Chair: William Barletta, U.S. Particle Accelerator School, MIT and UCLA Room: Ballroom C4 |
Monday, March 21, 2011 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
B8.00001: Unobtainium? Critical Elements for New Energy Technologies Invited Speaker: I will report on a recently completed study jointly sponsored by the APS Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) and the Material Research Society (MRS). The twin pressures of increasing demand for energy and increasing concern about anthropogenic climate change have stimulated research into new sources of energy and novel ways to harvest, transmit, store, transform or conserve it. At the same time, advances in physics, chemistry, and material science have enabled researchers to identify chemical elements with properties that can be finely tuned to their specific needs and to employ them in new energy-related technologies. Elements like dysprosium, gallium, germanium, indium, lanthanum, neodymium, rhenium, or tellurium, which were once laboratory curiosities, now figure centrally when novel energy systems are discussed. Many of these elements are not at present mined, refined, or traded in large quantities. However new technologies can only impact our energy needs if they can be scaled from laboratory, to demonstration, to massive implementation. As a result, some previously unfamiliar elements will be needed in great quantities. We refer to these elements as energy-critical elements (ECEs). Although the technologies in which they are employed and their abundance in the Earth's crust vary greatly, ECEs have many features in common. The purpose of the POPA/MRS study was to evaluate constraints on availability of energy-critical elements and to make recommendations that can help avoid these obstructions. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 21, 2011 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
B8.00002: Using Earth Abundant Minerals for New Research Pathways in Solar PV and Battery Storage Invited Speaker: Dr. Wadia will provide an in-depth look at his research to discover and develop a new material system toward a more expansive solar photovoltaic future, covering topics of: materials selection based on abundance, new synthetic pathways for scaleable materials, and results of working solar cell devices he has fabricated with these principles in mind. He will also discuss the results of his latest paper exploring the resource constraints on electrochemical storage for both transportation and grid scale applications. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 21, 2011 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
B8.00003: Essentials for Successful and Widespread LED Lighting Adoption Invited Speaker: Solid-state lighting (SSL), with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as the light source, is a growing and essential field, particularly in regard to the heightened need for global energy efficiency. In recent years, SSL has experienced remarkable advances in efficiency, light output magnitude and quality. Thus such diverse applications as signage, message centers, displays, and special lighting are now adopting LEDs, taking 2010's market to {\$}9.1 billion - 68{\%} growth from the previous year! While this is promising, future growth in both display and lighting applications will rely upon unveiling deeper understanding and key innovations in LED lighting science and technologies. In this presentation, some LED lighting fundamentals, engineering challenges and novel solutions will be discussed to address reduction in efficiency (a.k.a. droop) at high currents, and to obtain uniform light distribution for overcoming LEDs' directional nature. The droop phenomenon has been a subject of much controversy in the industry and despite several studies and claims, a widely-accepted explanation still lacks because of counter arguments and experiments. Recently several research studies have identified that the droop behavior in nitride-based LEDs beyond certain current density ranges can only be comprehensively explained if the current leaking beyond the LED active region is included. Although such studies have identified a few useful current leakage mechanisms outside the active region, no one has included current leakage, due to non-ideal, 3-D device structures that create undesirable current distribution inside and outside the active region. This talk will address achieving desirable current distributions from optimized 3-D device structures that should reduce current leakage and hence the droop behavior. In addition to novel LED design solutions for droop reduction and uniform light distribution, the talk will address cost and yield concerns as they pertain to core material scarcity. Such solutions are expected to make LED lights more energy efficient, pleasant in appearance, longer-lasting, affordable, and thus suitable for green living. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 21, 2011 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
B8.00004: Niobium and its Impact on Superconducting Radiofrequency Technology Invited Speaker: The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia, was the first large-scale deployment of superconducting radiofrequency (RF) technology, and was optimized for nuclear/high energy physics research. The success of this technology led to the creation of a Free Electron Laser (FEL) facility at Jefferson Lab that has achieved world-record power, and is leading the way towards the next generation of FELs based on superconducting energy-recovery linacs. Superconducting RF technology has been adopted for other large accelerators (LEP, SNS) and is proposed for many of the future large accelerator facilities (ESS, FRIB, ILC, Project X, etc.). All these applications rely on the superconducting properties of niobium. While the performance of niobium accelerating cavities has been excellent, there are still improvements being developed, in particular, the new ingot niobium technology. This talk will provide a review of superconducting RF technology and the impact it has had, and will continue to have, on the accelerator field. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 21, 2011 1:39PM - 2:15PM |
B8.00005: Isotopes for Research - Can We Continue to Depend on Them? Invited Speaker: The use of isotopes as tracers has been critical to many scientific endeavors. The discovery of radioactivity was quickly followed by experiments in which radioisotopes were being used to trace the behavior of those elements in biologic systems including humans. More recently, the ability to separate and enrich stable isotopes has facilitated their use as probes in a variety of applications using magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry and post facto neutron activation to determine their distribution, concentration and chemical form. Recently, shortages of both stable enriched and radioisotopes have had an impact on endeavors on which they play an important role. [Preview Abstract] |
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