Jul 3 2010
Professor Michael Grätzel, who discovered dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC), has been awarded the 2010 Millennium Technology Prize in Helsinki, in June 2010. The DSC, also known as Grätzel cell, can be manufactured in large numbers and the cell works on the principle of plant photosynthesis.
As the DSC development requires multidisciplinary research method, the New Energy Technologies Group is carrying out the research from 2001. The group is led by Peter Lund, a Professor from the Department of Applied Physics at the Aalto University.
Three doctoral students, three post-doctoral researchers and many research assistants constitute the DSC group. The research is mainly focused on preparation of cells on flexible foils, plastics, and metals to facilitate roll-to-roll mass manufacturing. The research group is internationally renowned for its contributions to characterization of DSCs, and researches on the degradation mechanisms. At present, the group is working on utilizing screen printing to increase the DSC technology to 100cm2 prototype modules.
Simple printing technologies can be used to prepare DSCs without the need of a cleanroom. High energy conversion efficiencies can be reached using abundant and inexpensive materials. These solar cells can be used for producing low-cost solar electricity in a large scale. In future, this technology could also be used for printed and mobile electronics applications.
Source: http://www.aalto.fi/en/