The Next Generation of Photovoltaics, Semiconductors and Silicon Chips Inspired by Marine Sponges?

February 15, 2006

Contact: Christina S. Johnson, csjohnson@ucsd.edu, 858-822-5334

STORY IDEA: Quirky tech story about the application of “Sponge Bob” technology to high-tech industry BACKGROUND: Sponges may look like soft blobs but they actually are made of a highly complex arrangement of nanoscale glasslike structures. The precision with which sponges synthesize these silica-based structures exceeds all present day human capabilities in nanoscale technology.

Sponge

Sponge spicule, an photoelectron micrograph. Photo Credit: Daniel Morse

NEWS: Biologists have identified the molecular mechanisms by which marine sponges synthesize their silica skeletons. They are now translating these mechanisms to develop new approaches for low-cost synthesis of semiconductors. Compared to current manufacturing practices, the methods they have developed operate at low temperature and use no harmful or caustic chemicals. Materials with novel structures and electronic properties are being produced. Results are especially encouraging for lowering manufacturing costs and improving energy efficiency of solar energy (photovoltaic) converters.

Lucent Technologies and Bell Laboratories are all industrial partners on the project, which is funded in large part by California Sea Grant.

LEAD INVESTIGATOR: Daniel E. Morse, Director of UCSB-MIT-Caltech Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies and Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Barbara, d_morse@lifesci.ucsb.edu, T. 805-893-7442; -8982

NOAA's California Sea Grant is a statewide, multi-university program of marine research, extension services, and education activities. It is the largest of the nation's 30 Sea Grant programs and is headquartered at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The National Sea Grant College Program is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce.