Steve Albrecht wins the 2019 Karl Scheel Prize
The Physical Society of Berlin is awarding the Karl-scheel-Prize to Steve Albrecht. © HZB
This year's Karl Scheel Prize from the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin honours Steve Albrecht of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie for his work in the field of highly efficient tandem solar cell absorbers made of metal-halide perovskites.
The award will be presented to Prof. Steve Albrecht in Magnus House of the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin on Friday, June 28, 2019. Albrecht will also deliver a lecture entitled “Highly Efficient Tandem Solar Cell Absorbers Made of Metal-Halide Perovskites”. The Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin cordially invites you to this event.
Albrecht has headed the Helmholtz Perovskite Tandem Solar Cell Junior Research Group at the HZB since August 2016 and has been appointed junior professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Technische Universität Berlin in December 2018. Together with colleagues at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, he succeeded in realising the first monolithic perovskite/silicon hetero-junction tandem solar cell, recording a record efficiency of 18.1 %.
Prof. Bernd Rech, Scientific Director of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, emphasises: “Steve Albrecht has achieved outstanding results over the past four years as a head of a Helmholtz Junior Research Group at the HZB, all the more since the topic of perovskite solar cells was new territory at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. He has been inspiring not only as a scientist, but also as a person.”
The Karl Scheel Prize has been awarded over a period of more than 50 years to a member of the Physikalische Gesellschaft for outstanding scientific work usually carried out after a doctorate. In accordance with Karl Scheel's bequest, the prize winner will be presented with the Karl Scheel Medal as well as a monetary award of €5,000 at a celebratory colloquium (Karl Scheel Meeting).
The Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin cordially invites you to this event.
Award ceremony: Friday, June 28, 2019 at 17:15
Venue: Lecture hall of Magnus-Haus, Am Kupfergraben 7, 10117 Berlin
More Information on the Karl-Scheel-Prize of the Physical Society of 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.