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Steering Committee Member

File:Sellers.jpg Dr. Ian Sellers
Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Oklahoma Group website
OKPVRI Associate Director Email: sellers@ou.edu

Dr. Ian Sellers is the head of the Photovoltaics Materials and Devices Group (www.nhn.ou.edu/~sellers/group/) at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Sellers received his Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the University of Liverpool in 1999, followed by a Master Degree from the Dept. of Physics at Imperial College London in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Sheffield in 2004. Between 2004 -2006 Dr. Sellers was a Marie Curie Fellow at CRHEA-CNRS in Valbonne France, a position that was followed by a three-year postdoctoral position at the University at Buffalo SUNY. Following his position at SUNY Buffalo, Dr. Sellers joined the Solar Energy and Technology Group as a Senior Research Scientist at Sharp Laboratories of Europe in Oxford, UK, where he was also a Visiting Academic Fellow in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. After spending four years in industry Dr. Sellers returned to the academic environment taking a position in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Oklahoma in 2011. Professor Sellers’ group at OU is focused on the development and investigation of novel quantum-engineered materials and devices for next generation photovoltaics, with a specific emphasis on hot carriers and intermediate band solar cells.

Recent Publications

  • “The effect and nature of N-H complexes in the control of the dominant photoluminescence transitions in UV-hydrogenated GaInNAs,” C. R. Brown, N. J. Estes, V. R. Whiteside, B. Wang, K. Hossain, T. D. Golding, M. Leroux, M. Al Khalfioui, J. G. Tischler, C. T. Ellis, E. R. Glaser, and I. R. Sellers, RSC Advances 7, 25353 (2017)
  • “Role of defects and surface states in the carrier transport and non-linearity of the diode characteristics in PbS colloidal quantum dot/ZnO solar cells,” Y. Cheng, D. C. M. Whitaker, R. Makkia, S. Cocklin, V. R. Whiteside, L. A. Bumm, E. Adcock-Smith, K. P. Roberts, P. Harikumar, and I. R. Sellers, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b00141 (2017)
  • “Effect of occupation of the excited states on the determination of hot carrier temperature in InGaAsP quantum well absorbers,” H. Esmaielpour, V. R. Whiteside, L. C. Hirst, C. T. Ellis, J. Tischler, M. P. Lumb, R. J. Walters, D. V Forbes, and I. R. Sellers, Progress in PV: Research & Applications DOI: 1002/pip.2890 (2017)
  • “Suppression of phonon-mediated hot carrier relaxation in type-II InAs/AlAsxSb1-x quantum wells: a practical route to hot carrier solar cells,” H. Esmaielpour, V. R. Whiteside, J. Tang, S. Vijeyaragunathan, T. D. Mishima, S. Cairns, M. B. Santos, B. Wang, and I. R. Sellers, Progress in PV: Research and Applications 24, 591 (2016)
  • “Investigation of InAs/GaAs1-xSbx quantum dots for applications in intermediate band solar cells,” Y. Cheng, M. Fukuda, V. R. Whiteside, M. C. Debnath, P. J. Vallely, T. D. Mishima, M. B. Santos, K. Hossain, S. Hatch, H.Y. Liu, and I. R. Sellers, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 147, 94 (2016)
  • “Improved performance in GaInNAs solar cells by hydrogen passivation,” M. Fukuda, V. R. Whiteside, J. C. Keay, A. Meleco, K. Hossain, T. D. Golding, M. Leroux, M. Al Khalfioui, and I. R. Sellers, Applied Physics Letters 106, 141904 (2015)
  • “Effects of localization on Hot Carriers in InAs/AlAsSb quantum wells,” J. Tang, V. R. Whiteside, H. Esmaielpour, S. Vijeyaragunathan, T. D. Mishima, M. B. Santos, and I. R. Sellers, Applied Physics Letters 106, 061902 (2015)

Recent Presentations

  • “Routes to high efficiency Photovoltaics using quantum wells and quantum dots,” Invited Seminar, Howard University, Washington D.C., USA, September 2016
  • “The potential of type-II systems for 3G PV: Hot carriers and Intermediate Bands,” Invited Seminar, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, N. Y. USA, July 2016
  • “Selective Passivation of Nitrogen Defects in GaInNAs Solar Cells,” Invited Seminar, United States Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., USA. March 2016
  • “Hot carriers in InAs/AlAs1-xSbx quantum wells: an interesting system for practical hot carrier solar cells,” Invited, SPIE Photonics West Conference, San Francisco CA, USA, February 2015
  • “Hot carriers at elevated temperatures in InAs/AlAsSb quantum wells,” Invited Condensed Matter Seminar, Department of Physics, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. November 2014

Student Information

Current Graduate Students: 3 (all in Physics) Yang Cheng, Hamidreza Esmaielpour, and Collin R. Brown

Current Undergraduate Students: 2 (all in Physics) Alison J. Roeth and Hannah Harrell