Developing high-efficiency solar cells
Martin Møller Greve is researching nanotechnology. He aims to create super-efficient solar cells.
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“Solar energy will be important to solve Earth’s energy challenges in the future and make our energy production sustainable. To reach this goal we need to develop solar cells that are as efficient as possible and to do this we need nanotechnology,” says Martin Møller Greve.
He is part of the group for nanophysics at the Department of Physics and Technology at the University of Bergen (UiB).
Prizewinning young researcher
Møller Greve finished his master’s in physics in 2010. In 2013 he presented his thesis “Nanostructuring for the manipulation of electromagnetice waves”.
“I seek to answer questions not yet answered. Nanophysics is a great field with a lot of activity and many questions has already been answered, but this questions inspires me,” says Møller Greve.
In 2012 he received “Vinghøyprisen”, a prize in electro-optics.
Møller Greve did his PhD in cooperation with the company EnSol A/S. Ensol has patented a metal-nanoparticle based sun cell.
New energy sources
To reduce our increasing CO2-waste it is important to compensate the burning of fossil fuels with new energy sources.
“The problem with the commercial sun cells made of silicon can just take advantage of 20 per cent of the sun light. To create the sun cells with nanotechnology can make it possible to use much more of the sunlight,” says Møller Greve.
“Nanoparticles have unique optical qualities and can be use on all types of materials, also clothes.”
Research shows that this technology is very efficient.
“Nanotechnology makes it possible to customize materials at the atom and the molecular level and to create complete new qualities. All the physics that we know and experience, such as gravitational forces, is less significant as the nanoscale and electrostatic forces take control. Another very important point is that the quantum mechanical effects begin to manifest themselves when we operate on the nanoscale. This creates effects that we otherwise never experience in the form of, for example, completely different mechanical, optical, chemical or electrical properties.”