Martina Schmid is Junior Professor at Freie Universität Berlin

The head of the Helmholtz junior group “Nano-Optical Concepts for Photovoltaics” (NanooptiX) at HZB, Dr. Martina Schmid, was appointed as junior professor at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) on 2 December 2013. Alongside her research at HZB, she will be teaching physics at FU.

The head of the Helmholtz junior group “Nano-Optical Concepts for Photovoltaics” (NanooptiX) at HZB, Dr. Martina Schmid, was appointed as junior professor at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) on 2 December 2013. Alongside her research at HZB, she will be teaching physics at FU.
Martina Schmid has headed the Helmholtz junior group NanooptiX since November 2012 and is conducting research on nano-optical concepts for chalcopyrite solar cells. Polycrystalline thin-film solar cells made from this material achieve high efficiencies. Yet the components, such as indium for example, are very rare and expensive elements. The junior group intends to reduce the amount of absorber material required – while simultaneously increasing the efficiency. To do so, they will be applying optical concepts at the nano and micro scale. Martina Schmid and her researchers intend to use nanoparticles or micro-lenses to cleverly concentrate light so that even more light is converted within the solar cells, thereby boosting the efficiency even higher.

Martina Schmid studied physics at the University of Augsburg and earned her doctorate at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin on the optimization of tandem solar cells based on chalcopyrites. Her thesis earned her several distinctions, including the 2010 Carl-Ramsauer Award of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin (DPG). After a research stay at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), she established her junior group at HZB in the autumn of 2012. Her team comprises five other researchers.

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