Christopher L. Exstrom
Professor of Chemistry
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Welcome to the UNK Department of Chemistry! I teach courses in inorganic, materials and general chemistry. Professor Scott Darveau and I lead the UNK Solar Energy and Nanoscience Research Group (SENRG) which is active in the development and study of new nanocrystalline semiconductor materials. Much of our effort focuses on solvent-based preparations of nanocrystalline CuIn1-xMxSe2 (M = Ga, Al, B) materials with potential applications in high-efficiency photovoltaic solar cells. The use of solvent in these preparations is an attractive, low-cost alternative to the existing high-vacuum techniques commonly employed in the solar cell industry. Efforts to maximize product compositional and structural control while minimizing reaction system cost and complexity have resulted in previously unreported nanocrystalline materials and preparation techniques. At UNK, our lab equipment and capabilities include a physical vapor deposition apparatus used for solid-state reactions and annealing, single-gun magnetron sputtering for substrate preparation, micro-Raman spectroscopy, ICP-OES for elemental analysis, and infrared and UV-vis spectroscopy for bandgap measurements. In collaboration with UNL colleagues, our material products are also characterized by XRD and SEM.
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