“Expanding the solar power industry in the United States can create new jobs, reduce carbon pollution, and save consumers money,” said Secretary Chu. “By partnering with NREL, these companies will be able to gain from their expertise, accelerate the pace of innovation and help get technologies to market faster.”

Companies awarded under DOE’s Photovoltaic Incubator Program will work with NREL to transition prototype and pre-commercial PV technologies into pilot and full-scale manufacturing. The anticipated subcontracts, up to $3 million each, will be awarded as 18-month phased subcontracts with payment made upon completion of project milestones.

Through the Recovery Act, the DOE is investing more than $117 million in developing and deploying solar energy technologies. While supporting cutting edge research and development on photovoltaics and concentrated solar power at the national laboratories, the Department is also making significant investments in training solar systems installers, supporting the growth of grid-tied solar photovoltaic systems, and the use of solar energy in U.S. cities.

The partnership projects announced today include:

California

Alta Devices, Inc. (Santa Clara, California) up to $3 million

Alta Devices will focus efforts on developing an innovative high-efficiency (>20%), low-cost compound-semiconductor photovoltaic module, with market entry expected in 2011.

Solar Junction Corp. (San Jose, California) up to $3 million

Solar Junction will develop a manufacturing process to produce a very high efficiency multi-junction cell. These high performing cells will be utilized by concentrating PV (CPV) manufacturers to produce lower cost CPV systems.

Tetra Sun (Saratoga, California) up to $3 million

Tetra Sun will focus efforts on a back surface passivation for high efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells. This effort will result in a high efficiency low-cost C-Si solar cell.

North Carolina

Semprius, Inc. (Durham, North Carolina) up to $3 million

Semprius will focus efforts towards a massively parallel, microcell-based CPV receiver. This approach combines the benefits of unique-to-solar manufacturing techniques with the performance and operational benefits of microcell concentrating photovoltaics.

Each Hub, to be funded at up to $122 million over five years, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.

 Secretary Chu said;

“Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation. The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research. We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday. Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.”

This strategy includes three new initiatives which are designed to complement each other:

1.The first approach is the Energy Frontier Research Centers launched by the Department’s Office of Science to support multi-year, multi-investigator scientific collaborations focused on overcoming hurdles in basic science that block transformational discoveries.

2.The second approach is spearheaded by the Department’s recently-formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“ARPA-E”), which uses a highly entrepreneurial funding model that supports America’s passionate energy innovators to explore high-risk, high-reward potentially transformative technologies that are too risky for industry to fund.

3.The third novel funding model, Energy Innovation Hubs, will establish larger, highly integrated teams ideally working under one roof, conducting high-risk, high-reward research and working to solve priority technology challenges that span work from basic research to engineering development to commercialization readiness.

The three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs will focus on:

•production of fuels directly from sunlight;

•improving energy-efficient building systems design; and

•computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors.

The Department will provide $22 million in the first year for the establishment of each Hub and up to $25 million per year for the following four years to support the operations of each Hub—for a total award of up to $122 million per Hub. Important information on the DOE’s Hub implementation plan and strategy for managing the Hubs can be found on the Energy Innovation Hubs website: http://hubs.energy.gov.

“This is an amazing achievement for the Energy Star program – but the real winners are the 1 million American families who have the chance to save money and keep harmful pollution out of the air. That’s great news for anyone who wants to cut costs and protect our planet,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “We’re going to keep the number of Energy Star homes growing, because every new Energy Star home is a step towards lower costs, cleaner air, and communities that are environmentally and economically sustainable. We’re giving everyday American homebuyers the power to lower their bills and join the fight against climate change.”

To earn the Energy Star label, a home must meet strict energy efficiency guidelines set by EPA. Those guidelines can be met through established, reliable building techniques available to most middle-class American homeowners. Those include effective insulation systems, high-performance windows, tight construction and ducts, efficient heating and cooling equipment, and high-efficiency lighting and appliances. In addition, an independent home energy rater conducts onsite testing and inspections to verify that the home’s performance meets Energy Star requirements.

There are more than 6,500 builders across the nation building homes that earn the Energy Star label and qualified new homes can be found in every state in the country. The top 20 markets for Energy Star qualified homes built to date include: Houston, Texas; Dallas, Texas; Las Vegas, Nev.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Greater Los Angeles, Calif.; New York, N.Y.; Tucson, Ariz.; San Antonio, Texas; Sacramento, Calif.; San Diego, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Indianapolis, Ind.; Austin, Texas; Philadelphia, Pa.; San Francisco, Calif.; Boston, Mass.; Denver, Colo.; Orlando, Fla.; and Oklahoma City, Okla.

• Cobo Center, Room W1-54, Detroit, MI
• Contact: Trudy Forsyth 303-384-6932

Heino Nitsche, head of the Heavy Element Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) and a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and Ken Gregorich, a senior staff scientist in NSD, led the team that independently confirmed the production of the new element, which was first published by the Dubna Gas Filled Recoil Separator group.

Using an instrument called the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator (BGS) at Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron, the researchers were able to confirm the creation of two individual nuclei of element 114, each a separate isotope having 114 protons but different numbers of neutrons, and each decaying by a separate pathway.

“By verifying the production of element 114, we have removed any doubts about the validity of the Dubna group’s claims,” says Nitsche. “This proves that the most interesting superheavy elements can in fact be made in the laboratory.”

The realm of the superheavy

Elements heavier than uranium, element 92 – the atomic number refers to the number of protons in the nucleus – are radioactive and decay in a time shorter than the age of Earth; thus they are not found in nature (although traces of transient neptunium and plutonium can sometimes be found in uranium ore). Elements up to 111 and the recently confirmed 112 have been made artificially – those with lower atomic numbers in nuclear reactors and nuclear explosions, the higher ones in accelerators – and typically decay very rapidly, within a few seconds or fractions of a second.

Beginning in the late 1950s, scientists including Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber at Brookhaven and theorist Wladyslaw Swiatecki, who had recently moved to Berkeley and is a retired member of Berkeley Lab’s NSD, calculated that superheavy elements with certain combinations of protons and neutrons arranged in shells in the nucleus would be relatively stable, eventually reaching an “Island of Stability” where their lifetimes could be measured in minutes or days – or even, some optimists think, in millions of years. Early models suggested that an element with 114 protons and 184 neutrons might be such a stable element. Longtime Berkeley Lab nuclear chemist Glenn Seaborg, then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, encouraged searches for superheavy elements with the necessary “magic numbers” of nucleons.

“People have been dreaming of superheavy elements since the 1960s,” says Gregorich. “But it’s unusual for important results like the Dubna group’s claim to have produced 114 to go unconfirmed for so long. Scientists were beginning to wonder if superheavy elements were real.”

To create a superheavy nucleus requires shooting one kind of atom at a target made of another kind; the total protons in both projectile and target nuclei must at least equal that of the quarry. Confirming the Dubna results meant aiming a beam of 48Ca ions – calcium whose nuclei have 20 protons and 28 neutrons – at a target containing 242Pu, the plutonium isotope with 94 protons and 148 neutrons. The 88-Inch Cyclotron’s versatile Advanced Electron Cyclotron Resonance ion source readily created a beam of highly charged calcium ions, atoms lacking 11 electrons, which the 88-Inch Cyclotron then accelerated to the desired energy.

Four plutonium oxide target segments were mounted on a wheel 9.5 centimeters (about 4 inches) in diameter, which spun 12 to 14 times a second to dissipate heat under the bombardment of the cyclotron beam.

“Plutonium is notoriously difficult to manage,” says Nitsche, “and every group makes their targets differently, but long experience has given us at Berkeley a thorough understanding of the process.” (Experience is especially long at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley – not least because Glenn Seaborg discovered plutonium here early in 1941.)

When projectile and target nuclei interact in the target, many different kinds of nuclear reaction products fly out the back. Because nuclei of superheavy elements are rare and short-lived, both the Dubna group and the Berkeley group use gas-filled separators, in which dilute gas and tuned magnetic fields sweep the copious debris of beam-target collisions out of the way, ideally leaving only compound nuclei with the desired mass to reach the detector. The Berkeley Gas-filled Separator had to be modified for radioactive containment before radioactive targets could be used.

In sum, says Gregorich, “The high beam intensities from the 88-Inch Cyclotron, together with the efficient background suppression of the BGS, allow us to look for nuclear reaction products with very small cross-sections – that is, very low probabilities of being produced. In the case of element 114, that turned out to be just two nuclei in eight days of running the experiment almost continuously.”

Tracking the isotopes of 114

The researchers identified the two isotopes as 286114 (114 protons and 172 neutrons) and 287114 (114 protons and 173 neutrons). The former, 286114, decayed in about a tenth of a second by emitting an alpha particle (2 protons and 2 neutrons, a helium nucleus) – thus becoming a “daughter” nucleus of element 112 – which subsequently spontaneously fissioned into smaller nuclei. The latter,287114, decayed in about half a second by emitting an alpha particle to form 112, which also then emitted an alpha particle to form daughter element 110, before spontaneously fissioning into smaller nuclei.

The Berkeley Group’s success in finding these two 114 nuclei and tracking their decay depended on sophisticated methods of detection, data collection, and concurrent data analysis. After passing through the BGS, the candidate nucleus enters a detector chamber. If a candidate element 114 atom is detected, and is subsequently seen to decay by alpha-particle emission, the cyclotron beam instantly shuts off so further decay events can be recorded without background interference.

In addition to such automatic methods of enhancing data collection, the data was analyzed by completely independent software programs, one written by Gregorich and refined by team member Liv Stavsetra, another written by team member Jan Dvořák.

“One surprise was that the 114 nuclei had much smaller cross sections – were much less likely to form – than the Dubna group reported,” Nitsche says. “We expected to get about six in our eight-day experiment but only got two. Nevertheless, the decay modes, lifetimes, and energies were all consistent with the Dubna reports and amply confirm their achievement.”

Says Gregorich, “Based on the ideas of the 1960s, we thought when we got to element 114 we would have reached the Island of Stability. More recent theories suggest enhanced stability at other proton numbers, perhaps 120, perhaps 126. The work we’re doing now will help us decide which theories are correct and how we should modify our models.”

Nitsche adds, “During the last 20 years, many relatively stable isotopes have been discovered that lie between the known heavy element isotopes and the Island of Stability – essentially they can be considered as ‘stepping stones’ to this island. The question is, how far does the Island extend – from 114 to perhaps 120 or 126? And how high does it rise out the Sea of Instability.”

The accumulated expertise in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division; the recently upgraded Berkeley Gas-filled Separator that can use radioactive targets; the more powerful and versatile VENUS ion source that will soon come online under the direction of operations program head Daniela Leitner – all add up to Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron remaining highly competitive in the ongoing search for a stable island in the sea of nuclear instability.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at http://www.lbl.gov.

Organized by the department’s Office of High Energy Physics, the symposium will be held at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel. Registration is free and open to all at the symposium web site. The conference will feature prominent speakers from industry, universities, and national laboratories and will conclude with a poster session and reception. A draft agenda is available at the symposium web site.

Registration closes on October 1, 2009.

Norman Augustine, former Chairman of the Lockheed Martin Corporation and of the National Academy of Engineering, and currently Chairman of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, will deliver the keynote address.

“The key to our success is the fabrication of gold electrical contacts on the ends of cadmium-selenide rods via direct solution phase-growth of the gold tips,” says Paul Alivisatos, interim-Director of Berkeley Lab, who led this research. “Solution-grown contacts provide an intimate, abrupt nanocrystal-metal contact free of surfactant, which means that unlike previous techniques for adding metal contacts, ours preserves the intrinsic semiconductor character of the starting nanocrystal.”

Image (a) is a transmission electron micrograph of a cadmium-selenide nanocrystal before gold tip growth in solution and image (b) is after tips have been added. Image (c) is a scanning electron micrograph of a single nanocrystal two-terminal device.

Berkeley

Alivisatos is a chemist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, and with the University of California-Berkeley where he is the Larry and Diane Bock professor of Nanotechnology. He is an internationally-recognized authority on nanocrystal growth and the corresponding author of a paper published in the on-line edition of NanoLetters entitled: “Enhanced Semiconductor Nanocrystal Conductance via Solution Grown Contacts.”

Co-authoring the paper with Alivisatos were Matthew Sheldon and Paul-Emile Trudeau, members of Alivisatos’ research group; Taleb Mokari, of Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry; and Lin-Wang Wang, in Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division.

With the world demand for energy projected to more than double by 2050 and more than triple by the end of the 21st century, it is imperative that sustainable and carbon-neutral energy technologies be developed. The use of sunlight to generate electricity as well as to split water molecules for the production of fuels is envisioned as an ideal energy source, and nanocrystals could be pivotal to the success of this vision. Electrical conductance in semiconductor nanocrystals is a critical element for both solar electricity and solar fuel technologies.

“Standard contacting procedures that deposit metal onto semiconductor nanocrystals directly, such as those used in commercial wafer-scale chip fabrication, cause alloying and chemical reactions at the metal-semiconductor interface,” says Sheldon, who was the lead author on the NanoLetters paper. “This means that the finished electrical device is actually made of a different material than the starting nanocrystal.”

Sheldon notes that while chemical treatments, such as etching off surfactant, have been shown to enhance the conductivity of thin film nanocrystal solids, these treatments will often alter the semiconductor’s electrical properties, for example switching the material from n-type to p-type or altering the density of surface states. Furthermore, he says, previous studies have not explained why electrical conductance was enhanced, other than acknowledging the removal of surfactant coverage.

In this new study, Sheldon, Alivisatos and their co-authors used single nanostructure electrical measurements to make systematic comparisons between cadmium-selenide nanorods with and without gold tips. The solution-grown tipping process started with the addition of gold salt to a solution of toluene and cadmium-selenide nanorods, which resulted in gold metal being selectively deposited on the nanorod tips. A silicon wafer test chip was then dipped in this nanorod solution. After submersion, the evaporation of the toulene solvent oriented individual cadmium-selenide nanorods across pre-defined gold electrodes, which were fabricated through electron beam lithography. The results were gold-tipped cadmium-selenide heterostructure devices whose electrical conductance was characterized in a two-terminal geometry as a function of source-drain voltage and temperature.

Matthew Sheldon, a member of the Paul Alivisatos research group, was part of a Berkeley Lab research team that developed a technique by which the electrical conductivity of nanorod crystals of the semiconductor cadmium-selenide was increased 100,000 times. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)

Says Alivisatos, “Our study shows that the superior performance of gold-tipped cadmium-selenide heterostructures results from a lower Schottky barrier and that solution grown contacts do not alter the chemical composition of the semiconductor. Further, our work demonstrates the increasing sophistication of high-quality electrical devices that can be achieved through self-assembly and verifies this process as an excellent route to the next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices utilizing colloidal nanocrystals.”

Adds Sheldon, “We believe our approach is an ideal strategy for making future devices from nanocrystals because it preserves the semiconductor character of the nanocrystal as synthesized with the precise control of their synthesis developed over the past decades.”

Sheldon says the next step in this work will be to determine if the dramatic improvements in electrical behavior can translate to improvements in nanocrystal-based energy production. Initially, the group plans to investigate the use of solution grown contacts in photovoltaic applications.

This research was primarily funded by the DOE Office of Science through Berkeley Lab’s Helios Solar Energy Research Center.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Visit our Website at www.lbl.gov/

 During his remarks, Secretary Chu also announced more than $144 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the electric power sector, including $44 million in awards to state public utility commissions and $100 million in available funding for smart grid workforce training programs.

“America cannot build a 21st Century energy economy with a mid-20th Century electricity system. This is why the Obama Administration is investing in projects that will lay the foundation for a modernized, resilient electrical grid,” said Secretary Chu. “By working with industry leaders and the private sector, we can drive the evolution to a clean, smart, national electricity system that will create jobs, reduce energy use, expand renewable energy production, and cut carbon pollution.”

$100 Million for Smart Grid Workforce Training

Secretary Chu also announced the availability of $100 million in funding from the Recovery Act to support workforce training for the electric power industry. This initiative will expand job creation and career advancement opportunities associated with smart grid and electricity transmission projects and will help establish training programs for workers in the utility industry and electrical manufacturing sectors who will play a key role in modernizing the country’s electrical grid.

The Funding Opportunity Announcement announced today will support two primary workforce training strategies:

•$35 -$40 million to develop training programs, strategies and curricula that will be used as models for how to train or retrain workers in the electric power sector, with a focus on achieving a national, clean energy smart grid. This funding will be open to a range of applicants, including utilities, colleges and universities, trade schools, and labor organizations.

•$60-$65 million to conduct workforce training programs for new hires and retraining programs for electric utility workers and electrical equipment manufacturers to further knowledge of smart grid technologies and their implementation.

These programs will expand the United States’ capability to manufacture and install the electrical equipment and new technologies needed to implement the smart grid, and help ensure that the U.S. maintains its position as a global leader in innovation and technological advancement. Read the full Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA).

$44 Million for State Public Utility Commissions

State public utility commissions (PUCs), which regulate and oversee electricity projects in their states, will be receiving more than $44.2 million in Recovery Act funding to hire new staff and retrain existing employees to ensure they have the capacity to quickly and effectively review proposed electricity projects. The funds will help the individual state PUCs accelerate reviews of the large number of electric utility requests that are expected under the Recovery Act. State PUCs will be reviewing electric utility investments in projects such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage, transmission lines, energy storage, smart grid, demand response equipment, and electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. View a full list of states and award amounts.