Thin-Film CIGS Photovoltaics: status and future

12:00PM-1:00PM, May 2, 2014, B100 Blum Center

Jeroen van Duren, CIGS, Intermolecular, Nanosolar, PV Idea Lab

After 40 years of R&D in the field of thin-film CIGS solar cells, CIGS has matured to the point that more than one GigaWatt of solar panels have been installed, and global manufacturing capacity now exceeds one GigaWatt annually. A brief overview on the improvements that have led to this achievement will be given, and further improvements needed in understanding, efficiency, and cost reduction will be highlighted. Additionally, today's PV market status and today's cost of solar panels will be used as a guide for the photovoltaics roadmap for the coming 30 years.

Jeroen van Duren, Intermolecular, Nanosolar, solar PV, CIGS

Bio about the speaker: Jeroen van Duren has 15 years of experience in thin-film solar cells. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Technology in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During his PhD he worked on polymer:fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells. After his PhD he moved to Silicon Valley to join solar startup Nanosolar. He worked at Nanosolar for 7 years where he became the Director of Research. At Nanosolar he worked on CIGS solar cells, printing CIGS-precursor inks, and growing CIGS films, and roll-to-roll manufacturing, which resulted in the world-record in printed CIGS. Today he is Director of Advanced Battery at Intermolecular, a Silicon Valley company with its focus on combinatorial R&D for various thin-film device applications. At Intermolecular he has been working on thin-film solar cells based on CIGS and CdTe, thin-film metal oxide transistors for low-power, high-resolution displays, and most recently on solid-state batteries. He has authored 40 papers, and over 100 patents and patent applications.

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