A new face in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, which we would like to welcome before the beginning of the winter semester 2020/21, is Prof. Dr. Michael Saliba. He moved from the TU Darmstadt to the University of Stuttgart and has been the new director of the Institute of Photovoltaics (ipv) since June 2020. At the same time he holds a position at Research Center Jülich, Germany. In Stuttgart he succeeds Prof. Dr. Jürgen Werner, who has headed the ipv since 1996, in the area of the application of materials and systems for semiconductor electronics and electrical storage for the energy revolution.
The teaching and research of Prof. Dr. Saliba focuses on a deeper understanding of novel semiconductor materials in the energy production of renewable energies.
Every hour, enough sunlight falls on the earth to cover the annual energy requirements of all mankind. How can we use this potential? Silicon solar cells, as they have been developed at ipv for decades, play a decisive role in this. Innovative approaches are needed to further expand the established silicon technology. One possibility is new materials that can be stacked on top of silicon, allowing sunlight to be converted into electricity more efficiently. The existing leading position of the ipv in silicon research can thus be combined with material innovations to come one step closer to the goal of a sustainable energy supply. The ipv also focuses on storage research, as in the case of batteries, because solar cells are not known to be nocturnal.
Prof. Saliba was awarded the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize, the young scientist prize of the German Association of Universities, and the MIT Technology Review named him one of the world's "35 innovators under 35".
We are pleased to have his expertise at the University of Stuttgart and welcome him as a new member of the EI Department.