Professor Michael Gratzel
Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Michael Graetzel directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered studies of mesocopic junctions and their use in photovoltaic cells, lithium ion batteries as well as photoelectrochemical devices for the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen by sunlight. He discovered a new type of solar cell based on dye sensitized nanocrystalline oxide films. Author of over 800 publications, two books and inventor of more than 50 patents, his work has been cited over 60'000 times (h-factor 116) making him one of the 10 most highly cited chemists in the world. He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Balzan Prize, the City of Florence Award, the Harvey Prize, the Galvani Medal, the Faraday Medal, the Dutch Havinga Award, the Japan Coordination Chemistry Award, the ENI-Italgas Prize, the European Innovation Prize 2000, and the Gerischer Award. He was selected as one of the 3 laureates of the 2010 Millenium Technology Award. He received a doctor's degree in Natural Science from the Technical University Berlin and honorary doctors degrees from the Universities of Hasselt (Belgium), Delft (The Netherlands), Uppsala (Sweden) and Turin (Italy). He is a member of the Swiss Chemical Society,the European Academy of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and was elected honorary member of the Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles.
Abstract
Optimizing photon harvesting and carrier collection in mesoscopic solar energy conversion systems
