Peidong Yang | Research UC Berkeley

Research Bio

Wires of different forms are an integral part of our human society for centuries. Electricity is being delivered through powerlines to every household; information is routinely transmitted through optical fibers and bridge-building requires the use of mechanically robust cables. In the past 30 years, scientists have fundamentally discovered a new process of making nanoscopic wires, 1000 times thinner than human hairs, enabling a new generation of computing, integrated photonics, and energy and biomedical technologies. A semiconductor nanowire, a new form of semiconductor, by definition, typically has cross-sectional dimensions that can be tuned from 1–100 nm, with lengths spanning from hundreds of nanometers to millimeters. These subwavelength structures represent a new class of semiconductor materials for investigating light generation, propagation, detection, amplification, modulation as well as energy conversion and storage.

After three decades of research, semiconductor nanowires with predictable and controlled electrical properties can be synthesized, thus providing optoelectronically-tunable nanoscale building blocks for device assembly for the first time, including nanoscopic lasers, solar cells, nanofluidic transistors, intracellular optical and electrical probes, thermoelectrics and (bio)photochemical diodes. Nanowire represents an important class of nanostructure building blocks for photovoltaics as well as direct solar-to-fuel conversion because of their high surface area, tunable bandgap, and efficient charge transport and collection. These semiconductor nanowires, with their unique photoelectrochemistry, are then used for artificial photosynthesis based on (bio)photochemical diode system design, where solar energy is converted and stored in chemical bonds in a solar-driven CO2 fixation process.

Research Expertise and Interest

materials chemistry, solid state chemistry, nanoscience, energy science, semiconductor nanowires, nanophotonics, artificial photosynthesis, electrochemistry, photoelectrochemistry, electrocatalysis, photocatalysis

In the News

image of scientist looking at test tubes

Scientists Develop Artificial Leaf That Uses Sunlight to Produce Valuable Chemicals

Decades of research leads to self-contained solar panels that convert carbon dioxide into C2 products.

Two researchers in lab coats and goggles work with outdoor scientific equipment near a modern building.

Five Ways LiSA is Advancing Solar Fuels

Since its launch in 2020, the Liquid Sunlight Alliance has enabled progress in artificial photosynthesis – including advances in device performance, materials durability, and computational modeling.

A collage of photos shows scientists working in different types of lab environments

Berkeley’s Ecosystem of Innovation, Entrepreneurship Combats Climate Change

For researchers developing critical new technologies, having an entrepreneurial bent is almost as important as conducting successful experiments.

New Institute Brings Together Chemistry and Machine Learning to Tackle Climate Change

A new UC Berkeley institute will bring together top machine learning and chemistry researchers to make this vision a reality, and a Bay Area foundation is providing a substantial gift to launch and enable this work at UC Berkeley over the next five years.

Light microscopy illustration shows nanowires, 100 to 1,000 nanometers in diameter

Scientists Grow Lead-Free Solar Material With a Built-In Switch

Solar panels, also known as photovoltaics, rely on semiconductor devices, or solar cells, to convert energy from the sun into electricity. Manufacturers typically dope the solar cell with chemicals so that one layer of the device bears a positive charge and another layer a negative charge. But chemical doping and layered synthesis also add extra costly steps in solar cell manufacturing.

four members of team Ssweet in their lab

NASA sweetens the pot: Team wins competition to make space sugar

The sugar-making process developed by Cestellos-Blanco and his UC Berkeley team, led by chemist and professor Peidong Yang, shared the top prize — $650,000 — with two other teams competing in the CO2 Conversion Challenge.

Sanjay Gupta (top left), Spencer Klein, Margaret Conkey, Robert Ritchie (bottom left) and Peidong Yang are the five new Berkeley scholars elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Five Berkeley top scholars named AAAS fellows

Five Berkeley scholars — four faculty members and one research scientist — have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest scientific societies. The distinction was awarded this year to 489 scientists, engineers and innovators for their advancement of science and its applications.

Blue diode illustrates limitations, promise of perovskite semiconductors

University of California, Berkeley, scientists have created a blue light-emitting diode (LED) from a trendy new semiconductor material, halide perovskite, overcoming a major barrier to employing these cheap, easy-to-make materials in electronic devices.

Introducing a kinder, gentler way to blow holes in cells

A new technique developed by University of California, Berkeley uses inexpensive lab equipment to efficiently infuse large macromolecules into cells. Called nanopore-electroporation, or nanoEP, the technique gently creates fewer than a dozen tiny holes in each cell that are sufficient to let molecules into the cell without traumatizing it.

New Director Assumes Helm of Kavli ENSI: Peidong Yang to direct the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute

Peidong Yang assumes the role of Director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (ENSI).

Harvesting solar fuels through a bacterium’s unusual appetite for gold

When fed gold nanoclusters, the bacterium Moorella thermoacetica is transformed into a hybrid artificial photosynthesis system that converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into useful chemicals for solar fuels.

‘Spacesuits’ protect microbes destined to live in space

Just as spacesuits help astronauts survive in inhospitable environments, newly developed “spacesuits” for bacteria allow them to survive in environments that would otherwise kill them.

Artificial leaves to produce fuel on Earth and, one day, Mars

Call it “liquid sunlight.” With the right technology, the gas station of the future will make its own fuel directly from sunlight, in the process sucking up carbon and producing oxygen.

Chemists create tinted windows that also generate electricity

A new discovery by Berkeley researchers may soon bring us windows that automatically tint on a sunny day to block the heat while also generating electricity.

Copper Catalyst Yields High Efficiency CO2-to-Fuels Conversion

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new electrocatalyst that can directly convert carbon dioxide into multicarbon fuels and alcohols using record-low inputs of energy.

Cyborg bacteria turn sunlight into useful chemicals

Chemists Peidong Yang and Kelsey Sakimoto have turned bacteria into efficient solar collectors to convert carbon dioxide into food for other bacteria producing fuels and chemicals

‘Lasers Rewired’: Scientists Find a New Way to Make Nanowire Lasers

Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley scientists adapt next-gen solar cell materials for a different purpose.

Chemist Peidong Yang receives MacArthur ‘genius award’

Peidong Yang, a UC Berkeley chemist who is trying to capture carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into a sustainable transportation fuel, has been named a MacArthur “genius” Fellow.

image of treetops with sunlight filtering through

Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment

A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products.

Big Step for Next-Generation Fuel Cells and Electrolyzers

A big step in the development of next-generation fuel cells and water-alkali electrolyzers has been achieved with the discovery of a new class of bimetallic nanocatalysts that are an order of magnitude higher in activity than the target set by the DOE.

UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab announce Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute

The Kavli Foundation has endowed a new institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to explore the basic science of how to capture and channel energy on the molecular or nanoscale and use this information to discover new ways of generating energy for human use.

Four Berkeley Lab scientists elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Four Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have been elected to the 2012 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary society founded in 1780 to recognize leading “thinkers and doers.”

A Single Cell Endoscope: Berkeley Researchers Use Nanophotonics for Optical Look Inside Living Cells

Berkeley researchers have developed a nanowire endoscope that can provide high-resolution optical images of the interior of a single living cell, or precisely deliver genes, proteins, therapeutic drugs or other cargo without injuring or damaging the cell.

California Team to Receive up to $122 Million for Energy Innovation Hub to Develop Method to Produce Fuels from Sunlight

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman announced a new award of up to $122 million to establish an Energy Innovation Hub aimed at developing revolutionary methods to generate fuels directly from sunlight.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.

January 24, 2020

First Blue LED Emission from a Perovskite

IEEE Spectrum

Jeff Hecht

An unprecedented blue light-emitting diode, or LED, using the inexpensive and natural mineral perovskite has been created by a team of Berkeley researchers led by chemistry professor Peidong Yang. Until now, perovskite LEDs have only put out red or green light, so the innovation offers new promise for electronic displays, but it also suggests potential instabilities in other applications, such as solar cells and transistors. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.

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