Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWSGerman High Tech Champions (GHTC) – Meet the Champions in Photovoltaic in Boston.
Dr. Andrés F. Lasagni, Dr. Lars Müller-Messkamp and their team will receive the award German High Tech Champion in the field Solar/PV for his Business Case: Rapid Fabrication of Nano-Structures for highly efficient Photovoltaics. The grand award show takes place on June 15, 2011 at the Clean Technology Conference & Expo in Boston, USA. Fraunhofer invites market leaders to witness the announcement and presentation of the winner.
The business case
The cost of delivered photovoltaic (PV) power is determined by the PV module conversion efficiency, the capital cost of the PV system per unit area, and the illumination conditions. To achieve very low cost PV power, it is necessary to develop cells that have high conversion efficiency at moderate costs. Towards this objective, at Fraunhofer IWS we have developed a system for the fabrication of periodic surface microstructures on large areas at high fabrication speeds.
The system is based on the Direct Laser Interference Patterning technology, and allows fabrication of 2D arrays on planar and non-planar components. In cooperation with the Institute of Applied Photophysic (IAPP) (Dr. L. Müller-Messkampf) at the Technical University of Dresden, organic solar cells were fabricated on textured flexible polymer materials, observing an increase of the relative efficiency of 21 %. This improvement is enabled by the folding of the absorber surface, increasing the efficient area and scattering light for preferential absorption. The proposed technology shows huge potential for the development of highly efficient solar cells for organic and other thin-film solar technologies.
German High Tech Champions (GHTC) in the field Solar / PV
The campaign German High Tech Champions will be realized by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. It is a part of the joint research project "International Research Marketing“, collaborative performed by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Research Community and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Aim of the project is advertising of the research place Germany at home country and abroad and raises its profile at the global research market.
Al actions realized within the project are a part of the initiative „Advertising for the innovation and research place Germany“ founded by the Federal Ministry of Education an Research under the brand „Research in Germany“.
The project
It has been conducted by Andrés F. Lasagni and Teja Roch from Fraunhofer IWS, as well as Dr. Lars Müller-Meskamp, Simone Hofmann, Dr. Reinhard Scholz, and Yong H. Kim from the Institute of Applied Photo Physic at the Technical University of Dresden.