Spotlight on Solar Energy

Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci, world-renowned expert on photovoltaics and professor of Physical Chemistry at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz, Austria, has recently been presented the 2012 Wittgenstein Award. Dubbed the "Austrian Nobel Prize", the award recognizes Sariciftci's groundbreaking research in the field of organic semiconductors and carries a cash prize of 1.5 million Euros. His research on improving organic nanostructures, which act as semiconductors in solar cells, can drastically bring down costs of solar energy conversion.

Sariciftci has been a speaker at ICTP activities related to new materials for renewable energy since 2001. His most recent colloquium talk at ICTP focused on his work on organic semiconductors, which has earned him the Wittgenstein Award. The complete colloquium talk can be accessed on  ICTP.tv.

In an interview with ICTP, Sariciftci also explained the science behind photovoltaics, the need to find more cost effective ways to tap into solar energy and why directly converting solar energy into chemical energy is crucial to meeting the world's ever-increasing need for energy. The complete interviews can be accessed on ICTP's YouTube channel ( Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci on Solar Energy, The science behind organic solar cells).