July 2011 - Issue #13
Industry PhDs to boost solar power
Story by Alexandra Roginski
View articles in related topics: Energy, Sustainability & The Environment, Optical Physics
Key points
- The Victoria-Suntech Advanced Solar Facility (VSASF) is home to an industry-focused PhD sponsored by Swinburne and Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd
- The two doctoral research students are seeking to improve the efficiency and affordability of solar power
Unlike many students who finish intensive doctoral studies to then face the daunting task of job hunting in academia or industry, Boyuan Cai and Yinan Zhang have their career paths already mapped.
Mr Cai, 28, and Mr Zhang, 25, are pioneer students in a PhD program founded by Swinburne University of Technology and Suntech (one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar panels) to combine academic knowledge-building with industrial pragmatism.
Before arriving in Melbourne at the end of last year, they had already completed nearly a year of training in Suntech’s R&D team at the company’s plant in Wuxi, China, where they were working on ‘thin film’ (second-generation) solar cells.
The students are based at the Victoria-Suntech Advanced Solar Facility (VSASF), a collaborative research centre at Swinburne’s Hawthorn campus funded by $5 million from Suntech, $4 million from Swinburne and $3 million from the Victorian Government’s Victorian Science Agenda Investment Fund.
They are supervised by photonics authority and VSASF director Professor Min Gu and senior research fellow Dr Baohua Jia on projects that seek to improve the efficiency of first and second-generation solar cells.
Mr Zhang graduated in 2009 from China’s Nankai University with a Bachelor of Science, for which his major was optics. He says one of the exciting aspects of his studies at Swinburne is the chance to expand his knowledge of optics into the field of nanoplasmonics – the study of how light interacts with metal surfaces at the nanoscale and a specialty research area at Swinburne – under the direction of Professor Gu.
“Nanoplasmonics technology is a completely new technology, so it’s exciting to transfer this into the knowledge of solar cells. Because it’s new, I can be more creative,” Mr Zhang says. There is also a language benefit for him and Mr Cai.
“It’s important because we need to cooperate with many people from around the world and English is the common language. This is also helpful for our research and future careers.”
Industry collaboration accelerates research cycle
The production line experience of Mr Zhang and Mr Cai equips them with practical knowledge of their employer’s business, for which they are creating solutions.
Professor Gu says that industry collaboration at the outset of a university-based research project helps to accelerate the research cycle.
“I learned this joint PhD model when I visited Seoul National University in Korea. They have many agreements with Samsung and LG. The industry gives money to the university, but students have obligations to return after finishing their PhDs. It is my belief this is why Korea developed very quickly in electronics,” Professor Gu says.
The great lesson for Professor Gu so far is the balancing act in such a partnership between the maximum level of innovation and its practical cost. A solar panel design that can achieve the theoretical limit of efficiency in the laboratory is not necessarily the best commercial option, he says. For example, the more silicon in a panel the more efficient it becomes, but to improve efficiency solely through increasing the quantity of silicon reduces the profit margin.
Most solar cells made around the world are first-generation silicon ‘wafer’ cells of about 200 micrometres in thickness and these silicon wafers account for about 60 per cent of panel cost. The wafers are treated to have positive and negative electron charges and then layered like a club sandwich in a way that conducts the solar energy.
The most efficient of Suntech’s first-generation cells are rated 19 per cent effective at turning sunlight into electricity, but the theoretical limit is 29 per cent.
Mr Zhang’s research project aims to achieve greater efficiency not by consuming more silicon, but by using innovative plasmonic nanomaterials at different positions within the silicon wafers.
Sights set on solar energy affordability
Applying the nanophotonics work of Professor Gu and Mr Zhang, Suntech hopes to dramatically improve energy-conversion efficiency to make solar energy more affordable for households.
Meanwhile, Mr Cai’s parallel project focuses on increasing the efficiency of second-generation cells – thin-film cells – by as much as 40 per cent above their current levels. These second-generation cells are far less hungry for silicon and can be applied more creatively, such as a coating on windows. But they are less efficient at turning sunlight into electricity (6 per cent with a theoretical efficiency limit of about 30 per cent).
If he succeeds in overseeing a breakthrough in conversion efficiency Mr Cai’s innovation could lead to the reopening of the company’s thin-film production line, built during the global financial crisis when the price of silicon sky-rocketed. But when the price of silicon stabilised, the production line was closed down.
Designing the industry PhDs underpinning this research was a balancing act for Professor Gu: the research must be innovative enough to satisfy the doctoral requirements of Swinburne, and it must be transferable to a commercial environment.
For Masters of Science graduate Mr Cai, the motivation to apply for this parcelled R&D traineeship and doctoral program was based on strong belief in the future of solar power. “Solar power is a promising renewable energy solution. So it is a great honour for me to be selected as a PhD student and to work at Suntech to make a contribution in the solar cell field,” Mr Cai says.
Suntech CEO Dr Zhengrong Shi hopes that by 2015, in 50 per cent of world markets, his company will have contributed to solar energy being as affordable as that sourced from the grid – a goal called ‘grid parity’.
“Two things are essential for the solar industry: sun and technology. Both are plentiful in Australia,” he says.
“Since my time studying in Australia 20 years ago, the global photovoltaic industry has achieved extraordinary growth, creating jobs and opportunities all along the value chain.
“This would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of students and researchers at institutions like Swinburne University of Technology.
