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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Top 50 Blogs by Graduate Students

When you work in the physical sciences, including physics, chemistry, engineering, astronomy and more, you have a lot of interesting work to do — and some seriously hard work to get through. Also included here are math grad students, since math is a huge part of physical science.


Check out the 8 Physical Sciences Student Blogs

Gold Nanoclusters Illuminate Cells


A paper describing a novel method of synthesizing fluorescent gold nanoclusters for molecular imaging inside the human body won SPIE Member Cheng-An Lin the 2010 Ocean Optics Young Investigator Award. Lin, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Chung Yuan Christian University (Taiwan), answered questions about his career path and research challenges in nanobiophotonics in a Nature magazine article.

Top 10 Paper Downloads for Solar & Alternative Energy

Two of the 10 most-downloaded articles for March are about promising advancements in the quest for efficient, low-cost solar cell technologies.
  1. Air-stable efficient polymer solar cells incorporating solution-processed titanium oxide layer
  2. High efficiency polymer solar cells with internal quantum efficiency approaching 100%
  3. The influence of light intensity, active area, and excitation wavelength on the temporal response of a dye sensitized solar cell
  4. Nanoscale self-assembly of high-efficiency copper indium gallium selenide photovoltaic thin films
  5. Nanostructured photovoltaics for space power
  6. Nanostructures for high-efficiency photovoltaics
  7. Rapid reactive transfer printing of CIGS photovoltaics
  8. Research and developments in thin-film silicon photovoltaics
  9. Semiconductor nanowire photovoltaics
  10. Surface plasmon enhanced photocurrent in thin GaAs solar cells

Exhibitor in the News

Edmund Optics Expands European Capabilities To Support Rising Optics Needs Throughout The European Continent

Want to Hear How the National Ignition Facility Was Built?

Symposium-wide Plenary Session
The Building of the National Ignition Facility
Edward I. Moses, Principal Associate Director, NIF and Photon Science, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (USA)

Biography: Ed Moses has 18 years of experience developing Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) laser systems and 30 years of experience developing and managing complex laser systems and high-technology projects.

Featured Chair


2010 Photonic Devices + Applications Symposium Chair


Zakya Kafafi, National Science Foundation (USA)



Dr. Kafafi is also the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Photonics for Energy (JPE) - a new e-journal focusing on the applications of photonics for energy harvesting, conversion, storage, distribution, monitoring, consumption, and efficient usage.

3D nanostructure for improved solar-cell efficiency

A 3D nanostructure for improved solar-cell efficiency
Cost-effective photovoltaic (PV) technologies are the key for large-scale deployment of solar cells capable of producing clean energy. Although conventional planar crystalline PV cells can provide good efficiencies, they are not viable for large-scale deployment because of relatively high costs. On the other hand, inorganic and organic thin-film semiconductor-based PV cells have low material and fabrication cost, but their large-scale performance is poor. Read more