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Abstract:

Climate change and sustainable energy supply is a major challenge facing humanity. In this talk, I will present a material physicist’s perspective on the challenges of green energy. Starting with a survey of the renewable energy landscape, I will discuss critical scientific and technological issues where a condensed matter physicist may have an opportunity to make “game changing” contribution to CleanTech. Using our own experience, I will showcase as an example a new approach to solar energy harvesting through photon enhanced thermionic emission.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Shen received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1989, M.S. from Rutgers University in 1985, and B.S from Fudan University in 1983. Prof. Shen is the Paul Pigott Professor in Physical Sciences of Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), Co-Director of the Stanford-Chevron Program for Diamondoid Nanoscience. His main research interest lies in the area of condensed matter and materials physics and focuses on the physics of “many”, where interactions among multiple constituencies give “emergence” of novel properties not intrinsic to the individual components. He has more than 250 publications, including more than 60 in three important journals of his field: Nature, Physical Review Letters, and Science. His publication record has H citation index of 54. His has received numerous awards including Sloan Research Fellow (1993); Materials Science Research Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics (1994); American Physical Society Centennial Lecture (1999); Kammerlingh Onnes Prize (2000); The Takeda Foundation Techno-Entrepreneurship Award (2002), American Physical Society Fellow (2002); Paul Pigott Professorship in Physical Sciences (2006). Prof. Shen served as committee members of many academic and advisory committees, including the Executive Committee, Division of Condensed Matter Physics, American Physical Society (2002-2004); Basic Energy Science Advisory Committee, US Department of Energy (1997-2002, as Vice Chair, 2000-2001); Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee, Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1998-2000); Executive Committee, Forum on International Physics, APS (1998); Member of the Council, Overseas Chinese Physics Association (1996-); Editorial Board, Chinese Physics (1999-2010); etc. Prof. Shen is the coinventor of seven US patent and patent disclosures.

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Anyone interested is welcome to attend.

As lunch will be provided 30 minutes prior to the seminar, it would be most grateful if you would confirm your attendance by June 10 2009 before 5:00pm to Clara (clara@eee.hku.hk). Please also advise if you have any dietary preference.