05.2017: Christophe Ballif wrote a commentary to the votation in Switzerland for the Energy strategy 2050 on May 21th and against the campagne of the opposition which is based on fear and “fake-news”. We need all support for a YES in this votation for a well defined future energy strategy.
Stratégie énergétique : la population va-t-elle croire les « fake-news » des opposants ?
Un commentaire de Prof. C. Ballif
Energie Strategie 2050 : Wird die Bevölkerung den « fake-news » der Gegner glauben schenken ? Kommentar von Prof. C. Ballif
04.2017: SiliconPV 2017 conference committee handed out the SiliconPV Award to Gizem Nogay, Dr. Anrea Tomasi and Dr. Matthieu Boccard for their contributions. This award is given to the 10 best ranked contributions of the conference among 211 submissions by a blind review process. Congratulation!
05.2016: Christophe Ballif wins 2016 Becquerel Prize
Prof Christophe Ballif, director of PVlab, will receive the 2016 Becquerel Prize, delivered by the European Commission. The Becquerel Prize is one of the most prestigious award in the domain of solar energy and Prof Ballif is awarded for his outstanding contribution in the field of photovoltaics with the development of very high-efficiency crystalline heterojunctions solar cells.
More details can be seen here: http://www.letemps.ch/search?keywords=ballif§ion=All and http://www.rts.ch/la-1ere/programmes/forum/7722152-forum-du-21-05-2016.html#7722148
04.2016: “ITO-free large area OLEDs ”
PVLab researchers achieved a key milestone in EU project Flex-o-Fab: the demonstration of ITO-free large area flexible OLEDs. The press-release can be found here: http://www.flexofab.eu/images/3183_Flexofab_PR_final-def.pdf
03.2016: “2 awards at the silicon PV conference”
2 PV-lab researchers obtained the “Silicon PV2016 awards” at the major specialized conference on Silicon photovoltaic who took place in Chambery France March 9-11th. Congratulation to Stephanie Essig, a new postdoc at PV-lab, who presented record tandem devices issued from collaborations with CSEM and the US NREL laboratory, and to Jonas Geissbühler, who recently obtained his Phd degree from PV-lab and joined CSEM as a “postdoc for industry”. He won the award for his work on high efficiency crystalline cells with MoOx emitters.
10.2015: Dr. Michael Stuckelberger received the Prix PX Group 2015 for his PhD thesis entitled “Hydrogenated amorphous silicon: impact of process conditions on material properties and solar cell efficiency.” The prize awarded by the PX Group and EPFL is granted to a young scientist for outstanding contributions in the field of microtechnology. [thesis]
09.2015: PV-lab is partner, with the City of Neuchâtel and Viteos, of the solar project “Hotel des associations” which is awarded the Swiss Solar Prize 2015 in the “renovation” category. A beautiful integration of Megaslates solar tiles, which show that solar tiles can perfectly suit the roofs of old and classified buildings ! Read more
08.2015: PV-Lab and CSEM in Sunday’s newspaper : low cost PV is coming. Read more.
07.2015: PV-Lab recently presented a perovskite cell with a sputtered transparent rear electrode for tandem applications. By using a thin metal oxide buffer layer to mitigate sputter damage, device efficiencies of up to 10.3% were reached for perovskite cells with an average transmittance of more than 60% in the 800–1200 nm wavelength range. By combining this perovskite cell with a silicon heterojunction cell, a mechanically-stacked 4-terminal tandem device with an efficiency of 19.6% was fabricated. This work will be presented in a plenary talk by Prof. C. Ballif at the EU PVSEC in Hamburg, Germany. Read more.
06.2015: Dr. Andrea Franco received the Omega scientific 2015 award ( http://www.prix-omega.ch/ ) for his PhD thesis entitled “Monolithic Particle Detectors Based on Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon”. The Omega scientific award is granted to young scientists for their outstanding research work in the fields of microelectronics, micro- and nanotechnology and time-frequency. [Thesis] [paper]
02.2015: At the NREL PV Module Reliability Workshop 2015, E. Annigoni won the Best Overall Poster Award in session #3 with her work entitled: “Moisture ingress into PV modules: long-term simulations and a new monitoring technique”. Congratulation for this achievement.
01.15 – The Swiss National Science Foundation boosts renewables research – Fifteen joint research projects have received funding to prepare Switzerland’s energy transition. Two of them focusing on photovoltaic energy and its architectural integration, will be led by EPFL, where Christophe Ballif, from PVLab, will direct PV2050, which aims to improve photovoltaic technologies and transfer them to the construction industry. [more]
09.2014: M. Stuckelberger received the poster award in the thematic area of “New materials and concepts for solar cells and modules” at the 29th EU-PVSEC for his contribution “Fully LED based solar simulator for steady state measurements and light soaking”.
08.2014: PV-Lab and CSEM researchers demonstrated self-patterned insulating nanoparticle layers to define local electrical interconnects in thin-film electronic devices. They evidence that the nanoparticle layer acts as an excellent intermediate reflector allowing for efficient light management. Read more.
06.2014: The proof of concept of vertically integrated amorphous-silicon-based microchannel plates (AMCPs) has been achieved by the PV-Lab. AMCPs with electron multiplication factor (gain) in excess of 100 have been successfully fabricated. These AMCP features microchannels with diameters of 4-6 microns and length of up to 100 microns. Further gain enhancements are expected allowing vertical integration of these devices on specific readout electronics for applications as photon counting. Read more.
03.2014: Researchers from IBM and the PV-Lab have fabricated high aspect-ratio three-dimensional a-Si:H solar cells to enhance a light absorption path while maintaining a short carrier collection length. Their work represents an important milestones towards 3D a-Si:H cells operating beyond the fundamental limit of light trapping enhancement. Read more.
12.2013: Researchers at the PV-Lab contributes to combining antennas with solar cells in a single efficient device by superimposing a reosonator to a thin film a-SI:H solar cell. Read more.
10.2013: PV-Lab contributed to the development of a low-cost highly efficient photocathode for solar hydrogen production. An amorphous Si based photocathode has achieved a “best in class” photovoltage and a 6.0% energy conversion efficiency, which represent a major step toward realizing spontaneous water splitting for fuel generation.This promising result is published in Nanoletters.
10.2013: Dr. K. Söderström recieved the Chorafas Foundation Award 2013 for her numerous contributions to the field of thin film photovoltaics and for the achievement of thin film solar cells using only a few microns of silicon reaching stabilized efficiencies of 13%.
10.2013: Dr. P. Cuony won “Dupont des Matériaux” Award 2013 for the synthesis of a new class of functional filamentous silicon oxide nanomaterials, for having elucidated their properties and showing their beneficial properties when incorporated into optoelectronic thin film devices such as silicon based solar cells.
09.2013: G. Bugnon and co-authors published a study regarding the use of a silicon oxide buffer layer at the p-i interface of thin-film silicon solar cells. The development of this layer led to higher performances in µc-Si:H solar cells, reaching 10.9% on small cells, and improved a-Si:H solar cells stability.Read the paper here or contact the author.
07.2013: The swiss television news reports on the work of the PV-Lab module design group on coloured modules. See the report here.
06.2013: The PV-Lab heterojunction group and Prof. Atwater’s group at Caltech won a best poster award at the 39th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference for their contribution entitled, “Experimental measurement of lateral transport in the inversion layer of silicon heterojunction solar cells.”
05.2013: Laura Ding and co-authors received a gold poster award at the 8th International Symposium on Transparent Oxide and Related Materials for Electronics and Optics (TOEO-8) in Japan, for their work on the electrical properties of boron-doped ZnO film.
05.2013: More information on the new world record for thin film silicon solar cells (news 02.2013) is now available in an accelerated publication by Simon Hänni et al. in the journal Progress in Photovoltaics.
02.2013: The PV Module Design Group receives an award for the best poster at the NREL Photovoltaic Module Reliability Workshop.
02.2013: The new Photovoltaic Systems Center in Neuchâtel is operational. As a new division of the CSEM, this center will rely on the scientific expertise of the PV-lab and the technical know-how of several engineers with experience of the industry.
02.2013: New world record efficiency for thin film silicon solar cells: PV-Lab researchers has reached a remarkable 10.7% efficiency single-junction microcrystalline silicon solar cell, clearly surpassing the previous world record of 10.1% held by the Japanese company Kaneka Corporation since 1998. Such significant efficiency, independently certified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE CalLab PV Cells), could in addition be achieved with less than 2 micrometers of photovoltaic active material. More information here
01.2013: In 2012, 8 swiss civilists participated in the development of hot topics in solar cells at the PV-Lab. If you are interested, please find more information on www.service-civil.ch
01.2013: The PV-Lab project partner of the EU-FP7 funded project Flexofab aiming at developing new large area flexible OLED lightning systems. For questions, please contact : Dr. Morales.
01.2013: PV-Lab continues its aim to educate our young generation on renewable energies by building solar toys with Graine de Belette.
01.2013: A group of scientists from the PV-Lab receives “Top cited article 2007 to 2011″ prize from Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids for their paper entitled “Relation between substrate surface morphology and microcrystalline silicon solar cell performance” . Moreover, this paper is the most cited paper of this journal since 2008. (M. Python et al. J. Non-Cryst. Solids 354, 2258–2262, 2008)
01.2013: PV-Lab’s triple-junction solar cell presented in the research highlights of Journal of Applied Physics. (K. Soederstroem et al., J. Appl. Phys. 112, 114503 (2012))
10.2012: Dr. Corsin Battaglia from the PV-Lab receives the Zeno Karl Schindler Price 2012 for his outstanding contributions in the light trapping schemes for thin solar cells.
09.2012: The contribution of two distinct material phases for the growth of intrinsic microcrystalline silicon material on textured substrates for photovoltaic applications is shown in a paper by G. Bugnon et al. in Advanced Functional Material. Based on these developments, a single junction p-i-n microcrystalline record solar cell of 10.9% is presented.
09.2012: PV-Lab presented at the EU-PVSEC 2012 in Frankfurt record high efficiencies on silicon heterojonction structures: Read more here.
06.2012: PV-Lab presented at the IEEE PVSC (Austin, Texas) a 11.8 % stable efficiency micromorph solar cell, obtained with processes compatible for up-scaling, i.e. LPCVD ZnO electrode and less 1.7 micron thickness of Silicon deposited in KAI reactors. Moreover, PVLAB demonstrated at the same conference a 11.1 % stable efficiency micromorph n-i-p solar cell deposited on glass, compatible for opaque substrates and using less than 2 microns of silicon.
05.2012: Television report of the Swiss Italian Television (RSI) on solar energy and the PV-Lab. View here.
03.2012: The Fourth International Workshop on Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells (IWTFSSC-4) took place in Neuchâtel from March 19th to March 23rd. Over 150 scientists and industry representative gathered and enjoyed a week rich in high quality talks (50 invited speakers) and stimulating discussions which provided an update view of the field of thin film silicon and heterojunction cells.
03.2012: A 10.9% efficient amorphous silicon solar cell on a periodic nanocavity substrate developed in collaboration with Stanford University is presented in a recent paper by Battaglia et al. published in ACS Nano. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn300287j
02.2012: Dr. S De Wolf from PV-Lab publishes the first review article on Silicon heterojunction solar cells in Green.
02.2012: A group of scientists from PV-Lab demonstrate a 14.1% efficiency Micromorph solar cell using only 3 micrometers of silicon thanks to a multiscale textured transparent electrode architecture, published in Nano letters.
01.2012: Dr. F-J. Haug’s paper submitted for the PVSEC held in Hamburg in September 2011 was chosen as one of the 20 top papers among the 1750 abstracts. It is now available in a special edition of Progress in PV.
12.2011: PV-Lab and CIME unravel the filament nanostructure of a functional mixed-phase oxide material for photovoltaic application. Read more here.
12.2011: Chemiextra publishes an article “Tarte Tatin wirft neues Licht auf die Fotovoltaik” in its December issue presenting work performed at the PV-Lab.
05.12.2011: Roth & Rau achieve 21% efficiency on 156mm wafer.
02.12.2011: Dr. Despeisse from PV-Lab received the best paper award at the PVSEC-21 conference held in Japan for his paper entitled “Advanced superstrates for high efficiency thin film silicon solar cells”
27.09.2011: The newspaper “Le Temps” relates in its article entitled “L’IMT développe un nouveau procédé de fabrication pour cellules solaires” the nanomoulding technique to process low-cost solar cells demonstrated at the PV-Lab (see news 21.08.2011).
21.08.2011: Scientists from PV-Lab demonstrate a low-cost nanomoulding technique for transferring arbitrarily designed surface morphologies directly onto transparent zinc oxide electrodes providing unprecedented flexbility for studying nanophotonic light trapping in high efficiency thin-film silicon solar cells. Their results are published in Nature Photonics and advertized by the EPFL.
08.2011: A team of researchers from the PV-lab in Neuchatel makes the cover of Physica Status Solidi (a), with their article entitled “Optimization of thin film silicon solar cells on highly textured substrates“
07.2011: Project Magazine spotlights the PEPPER project, involving the PVLab, which aims at investigating the major process steps in tandem-junction micromorph® manufactoring lines: Making solar energy an affordable alternative
24.06.2011: Mathieu Boccard, from the PVLab, wins the Best Student Presentation Award with his presentation entitled “Single to Multi-Scale Texturing for High Efficiency Micromorph Thin Film Silicon Solar Cell” at the 37th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in Seattle, USA
17.06.2011: Swiss Confederation to invest massively in development of PV technology in Neuchâtel
31.05.2011: Nanostructures improve solar cells: PvLab in Euronews
06.05.2011: Paper of M. Despeisse et al. (PV-Lab) as editor choice in Physica Status Solidi A andfeatured on materials science site
04.2011: Nano Letter on “Nanoimprint lithography for high-efficiency thin-film silicon solar cells” featured in the April issue of the MRS bulletin
25.03.2011: Advances in screen-printing techniques at PV-Lab
03.2011: The PV-Lab in le magazine Electrosuisse
May 6 – 15, 2011 : Journées du Soleil
2011: Interview of Prof. Christophe Ballif in the new Swiss Cleantech Report 2011
12.2010: A group of scientists at PV-Lab demonstrate high-efficiency micromorph solar cells on nanoimprinted superstrates published in Nano Letters. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nl1037787
11.2010: A team of researchers from the PV-lab in Neuchatel made the front cover of physica status solidi (RRL) – Rapid Research Letters, with their article entitled “Unlinking absorption and haze in thin film silicon solar cells front electrodes“.
2.11.2010: The PVlab is a partner of a major new european project PEPPER in collaboration with Oerlikon Solar. This is one of the largest EU project on production technology for next generation thin film silicon production equipment.
7.09.2010: New world record micromorph solar cell by the Oerlikon Solar lab: In a paper co-authored by the PVlab, Oerlikon announces 11.9% stabilized efficiency micromorph solar cell using less than 2 micrometer silicon.
6.09.2010: PVlab and Roth&Rau break 20% barriers with simple manufacturing processes for crystalline silicon solars: In a common presentation at the 25th Photovoltaic Conference in Valencia, the authors reported cells with 20.3% and 21% obtained on the R&D tool and research system of the PVlab and Roth&Rau, respectively.
Archives before 2011
Le PV-lab est un des membres fondateurs du pôle suisse de technologie solaire
STZ-March 2010: Solarzellen in der Übersicht
Naturstrom- March 2010: Neuentwicklung dank Fonds
Flash November 2009: La course au rendement solaire
November 2009: Prix de la ville de la Chaux-de-Fonds (Thomas Söderström)
Business News-June 2009: From Fundamental Research to Industrial Technology
EPFL Energy Planet Newsletter, June 2009: « PV-LAB, un laboratoire de l’EPFL qui “éclaire” le domaine de l’énergie solaire »
Hebdo-August 2008: Oerlikon Solar, pépite des Alpes
Express-2008: Le laboratoire solaire qui fait rayonner Neuchâtel dans le monde
Hedbo November 2007: “Nouss assistons à l’essor formidable des technologies solaires”
