European Workshop on Nanophotonics for Solar Energy
Participants of the European Workshop on Nanophotonics for Solar Energy. © HZB
On 25 and 26 November 2015, about 40 researchers from seven European countries visited Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to attend the “European Workshop on Nanophotonics for Solar Energy”.
On 25 and 26 November 2015, about 40 researchers from seven European countries visited Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to attend the “European Workshop on Nanophotonics for Solar Energy”.
During this workshop, current trends and developments in this field were discussed. Further, future opportunities and possibilities for collaboration were explored during discussions, which were initiated with a talk on funding within the European Commission Horizon 2020 program by Dr. David Kolman from the Brussels Office of the Helmholtz Association. The highlight of the workshop was the Distinguished Lecture by Prof. Thomas F. Krauss from the University of York (UK), in which he shared his vision on the future of Photovoltaics and informed us about the latest research results from his group.
This workshop was initiated and organized by Christiane Becker, Sven Burger and Klaus Jäger within the Berlin Joint Lab for Optical Simulations for Energy (BerOSE), which is a collaboration between Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Zuse Institute Berlin and the Free University Berlin.
- Battery research: visualisation of aging processes operandoLithium button cells with electrodes made of nickel-manganese-cobalt oxides (NMC) are very powerful. Unfortunately, their capacity decreases over time. Now, for the first time, a team has used a non-destructive method to observe how the elemental composition of the individual layers in a button cell changes during charging cycles. The study, now published in the journal Small, involved teams from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), the University of Münster, researchers from the SyncLab research group at HZB and the BLiX laboratory at the Technical University of Berlin. Measurements were carried out in the BLiX laboratory and at the BESSY II synchrotron radiation source.
- New instrument at BESSY II: The OÆSE endstation in EMILA new instrument is now available at BESSY II for investigating catalyst materials, battery electrodes and other energy devices under operating conditions: the Operando Absorption and Emission Spectroscopy on EMIL (OÆSE) endstation in the Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory Berlin (EMIL). A team led by Raul Garcia-Diez and Marcus Bär showcases the instrument’s capabilities via a proof-of-concept study on electrodeposited copper.
- Solar cells on moon glass for a future base on the moonFuture settlements on the moon will need energy, which could be supplied by photovoltaics. However, launching material into space is expensive – transporting one kilogram to the moon costs one million euros. But there are also resources on the moon that can be used. A research team led by Dr. Felix Lang of the University of Potsdam and Dr. Stefan Linke of the Technical University of Berlin have now produced the required glass from ‘moon dust’ (regolith) and coated it with perovskite. This could save up to 99 percent of the weight needed to produce PV modules on the moon. The team tested the radiation tolerance of the solar cells at the proton accelerator of the HZB.