What can Materials Science tell us about Solar Energy of the Future?

Glyndŵr University Inaugural Professorial Lecture Series 2010/11

Professor Stuart Irvine, Research Professor of Solar Energy and Opto-electronic Materials, Glyndwr University

The global solar energy industry has been growing rapidly for over a decade and has continued to expand through the economic recession. The industry is, however, in its infancy and there are significant opportunities to improve the current generation of solar electric modules with new materials to reduce cost, increase solar conversion efficiency and modify appearance according to the needs of the building design.

Professor Irvine will look at the fundamental limitations to conversion of solar energy into electricity and at how the discovery of new materials might achieve higher performance than the current generation of solar electric modules. Deposition of thin organic and inorganic semiconductors onto flexible substrates will become more prevalent but materials compatibility and the long lifetime needed for a solar electric product to be incorporated into a building (at least 25 years) will be a challenge. This lecture will explore what we know about materials science and make predictions about what could be achieved in the future.

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