SolarWorld Junior Einstein Award 2016 for Dr. Udo Römer from ISFH

Two scientists, two institutes, one goal – highly efficient solar cells

Emmerthal (RP/RBR). For the eleventh time, outstanding young scientists were honored with the prestigious SolarWorld Junior Einstein Award. As part of Intersolar Europe in Munich, the German solar company awarded this year’s prizes to two young scientists on 22 June 2016: Dr. Udo Römer, Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hameln (ISFH) and Dr.-Ing. Frank Feldmann, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE). The jury of the international competition honored the two researchers for their groundbreaking work on passivating contacts, which will enable a considerable increase in efficiency for silicon solar cells.

The passivating POLO contacts developed by Udo Römer at ISFH combine efficient current extraction from the solar cell with excellent surface passivation. POLO stands for “polycrystalline silicon on oxide” and describes the used layers. The recombination losses are reduced by orders of magnitude compared to conventional contact schemes. The pre-factors of the remaining recombination currents of Udo Römer’s passivating contacts are below 1 fA/cm², representing world best values. If a silicon solar cell would not show any further losses, which is not (yet) the case in reality, the passivating contacts developed by Udo Römer would enable cell efficiencies of more than 28%. Udo Römer succeeded in developing such passivating contacts for both polarities of the solar cell. The technological success was made possible by fundamental investigations into the current transport mechanisms and the resulting optimization strategies.

The jury chairman, Dr. Holger Neuhaus, praised the work of Udo Römer in his decision to award the prize: “He has succeeded in establishing the world’s best contacts and has also fundamentally developed the theory of these contacts further.”

“With his work, Mr. Römer has laid the foundation for a future-oriented technology that allows a further significant increase in efficiency and can be produced on existing production platforms. The prospects for industrial application are therefore very good,” said Prof. Dr. Robby Peibst, head of the research work on passivating contacts and group leader at ISFH.

“Mr. Römer has fully exploited the opportunities offered by ISFH and the laboratory for nano- and quantum engineering at the Leibniz Universität Hannover. This was the only way to achieve these results. This shows how fruitful the cooperation between ISFH and Leibniz Universität Hannover is,” says Prof. Dr.-Ing Tobias Wietler from Leibniz Universität Hannover and PhD supervisor of Udo Römer.