It has been recognized that solar energy will play a critical role in a sustainable future of humanity. How to harvest solar energy and store it in the form of chemicals or electricity for easy transportation and redistribution remains a significant challenge. Semiconductor-based photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical, and photovoltaic solar-energy conversion has been considered very promising to address this challenge. At the heart of the technology is the lack of suitable semiconductor materials and efficient systems that can perform the solar-energy conversion efficiently and inexpensively. Much work needs to be done in this research field, for instance, full control of growth characteristics and physicochemical properties of targeted semiconductor materials and rational design of systems efficiently utilizing incident solar light. The main objective of this special issue is to bring together researchers and engineers working on semiconductor-based solar-energy conversion, bridge between fundamental materials research and solar-energy conversion. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Preparation of powdered and thin-film semiconductor materials for solar-energy conversion
• Band, facet, and defect engineering of semiconductor materials
• Solar light harvesting/concentrating devices and reactors for semiconductor-based solar-energy conversion
• Computation and modeling of semiconductor-based photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical, and photovoltaic conversion processes
• New concepts on semiconductor-based artificial photosynthesis

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