Abstract
Keywords: atomic layer deposition; batteries; energy conversion; electrochemistry; electrolysis; fuel cells; photovoltaics; solar cells; thin films
Highlights
Most of the technical development of the 19th and 20th centuries relied on thermal engines to generate mechanical or electrical work from the combustion of fossil fuels [1]
Fuels still play a fundamental role as energy carriers for the storage and the regulation of the electrical power grid, but they are converted to other energy forms by electrochemical methods rather than thermal engines
In most solar cells these two phases are two solid semiconductors, in batteries and fuel cells they are usually a solid and an electrolytic liquid, and in the ‘light reactions’ of photosynthesis the two phases consist of two liquids separated by a lipidic membrane
Summary
The interconversion of energy between light and electrical forms (in solar cells and light-emitting diodes), between light and chemical forms (photosynthesis and chemiluminescence), and between chemical and electrical forms (batteries, electrolyzers, fuel cells, respiration) always relies on the transport of charge carriers towards an interface and away from it, combined with the transfer of electrons at the interface This electron transfer, the most fundamental energy-converting. The surface chemistry is ‘self-limiting’: each reaction deposits an amount of material defined by the availability of surface reactive groups, not by the (local) partial pressure of gaseous precursors This growth mode circumvents mass transport as the rate-limiting factor of the increase of the film thickness, thereby allowing for a homogeneous growth even if the gas phase is inhomogeneous – a situation notably found in highly porous systems. Reviews have been published recently on the applications of ALD in photovoltaics [11], lithium ion batteries [12], and solid oxide fuel cells [13]
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