Nanophotonics - essential ingredient for efficient and cost-effective solar cells?

jointly with EU PV TP – European Photovoltaic Technology Platform and Photonics 21

Scope:
A forum for the Nanophotonics and Photovoltaics communities to exchange ideas, to inform one another of latest developments, issues and challenges and to discuss joint future activities.

Background:
The Photovoltaics community is driven by issues relating to materials, engineering and manufacturing, and mainly focusing on the $/W metric. Novel ideas emerging out of the Nanophotonics community may address these issues by increasing the efficiency for the same amount of material, or by allowing a reduction in the amount of material used for the same efficiency, but these ideas are often seen as impractical and not scalable. There is a clear need for the Photovoltaics and Nanophotonics communities to inform one another of the mutual constraints and capabilities and to explore the way forward, with the goal of ensuring the long term European competitiveness. The most suitable funding sources need to be identified and brought on board.

The meeting will address questions such as:

What are the material and engineering constraints that prevent the implementation of Nanophotonic concepts? Are Nanophotonics concepts scalable to square metre panels? What is the tradeoff between performance and cost? What are the material issues, also in view of earth abundance?

For more information please visit the 28 EU PVSEC webpage: https://www.photovoltaic-conference.com/parallel-events/nanophotonics-2013.html

Inscription to the Smart Solutions Forum II: https://www.photovoltaic-conference.com/parallel-events/inscription-for-eu-pvsec-parallel-events.html