Improving computer memory, solar cells goal of UH chemist

Vassiliy Lubchenko wins Beckman Young Investigator Award for discoveries in amorphous materials

Vas Lubchenko, a theoretical physical chemist at UH, takes raw data from researchers in the lab and crunches formulas and numbers to solve the puzzle of electrical phenomena in amorphous... Click here for more information.

HOUSTON, July 8, 2008 – A high-tech breakthrough in solar cells and flash drives may just come down to good old-fashioned pencil and paper calculations, says an award-winning young chemist at the University of Houston.

Amorphous materials, such as glass, expensive porcelain and plastics, may be at the very root of advances in solar batteries and computer memory, according to Vassiliy Lubchenko, an assistant professor of chemistry at UH who researches the electronic structure of these materials.

The underlying physics and chemistry of electrical properties of amorphous materials is one the most fascinating and difficult problems in chemistry and physics. Direct computer modeling and existing theoretical approaches that have worked well for regular crystals and small molecules have not provided satisfactory insight into these disordered systems.

"The molecular structure of an amorphous solid is similar to that of a liquid," Lubchenko said. "Their atoms are not arranged in a periodic fashion, and chemists do not understand precisely how they conduct electrical charge. The inability to control and predict the materials' optical and electrical properties limits their use in photovoltaic devices such as solar cells and in information processing and storage."

Cracking the mystery of amorphous and disordered materials would pave the way for their use in affordable solar batteries. Amorphous materials, similar to those used in rewritable CDs, also have potential to greatly expand the speed and capacity of computer memory.