The fast increase of telecommunications and technology continuously pushes towards low energy and complex functionalities. New functionalities necessarily imply silicon technology to be extended to other materials and systems, with optical and electrical properties beyond those of Si alone.
Optical modulators are one of the principal components constituting photonic circuits directly determine the energy costs and systematic performances of optical devices. Among modulators, electrochromic devices regulate light intensity by applying a low voltage. Despite inorganic oxide materials present low energy consumption, limitations arise to fabricate fast switching tunable light electrochromic devices. A possible solution to overcome these limitations are mixed ionic-electronic conductors. Their optical properties’ change is based on electrochemically driven reversible redox processes regulated by an electric field.
To tackle this, Alicia Ruiz-Caridad is joining the Nanoionics and Fuel Cells Dept. at IREC under the supervision of Prof. ICREA Albert Tarancón in the framework of a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) called Phides. The fellowship has a total budget of ~165k€ and will run for 2 years.
Phides, which stands for “Photoionic Light Modulators for Electrochromic Devices“, aims at developing novel solid-state NV electrochromic devices based on photo-ionic materials, which are still at an early stage of the R&D process, and many aspects still needs to be improved to deliver a competitive device.
Link to cordis: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101152905
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
