Award from European Commission for the successful development of photovoltaic concentrator technology

At the 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (PVSEC), the European commission has awarded the Becquerel Prize to Dr. Andreas Bett, Head of the Materials – Solar Cells and Technology department and one of the deputy institute directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy ISE. One of the most prestigious solar awards, the Prize is named after French scientist Alexandre Edmond Becquerel, who discovered the photovoltaic effect in 1839. The Prize was awarded on September 21, 2009 at PVSEC, the largest European photovoltaic conference, in Hamburg.

The prize committee especially praised Bett’s contributions in the field of photovoltaic concentrator technology, especially his pioneering role in the development of monolithic cascade solar cells. In January 2009, Bett’s team posted a world record efficiency of 41.1 percent employing a method of metamorphic crystal growth. His work in the field of characterization techniques and the development of simulation tools for concentrator solar cells was also praised. Most of all, the jury was impressed with the FLATCON® principle, with which Dr. Bett brought photovoltaic concentrator technology closer to the market. Bett is a co-founder of Concentrix Solar GmbH, an ISE spinoff that successfully markets this technology today.   
 

Born in Furtwangen, Germany in 1962, Andreas Bett got his masters in physics and mathematics at the University of Freiburg and his doctorate on the "Development of GaAs solar cells on foreign substrates" at the University of Constance. He has been a part of the Fraunhofer ISE staff since 1987. In 1993, he took over the III-V Epitaxy and Solar Cells Group; in 2007, he took over the helm of the Materials – Solar Cells and Technology department. Since July 2009, the new Becquerel prize winner has also been one of two deputy institute directors at Fraunhofer ISE. In his research, Bett focuses on the development and epitaxy of stacked solar cells made of III-V semiconductors, the development of concentrator modules and concentrator systems, and the analysis and characterization of cells and modules.
 

Bett has a great international reputation as a researcher of III-V semiconductors and concentrator system development. He and his team at Fraunhofer ISE have posted several records for tandem solar cells in numerous international collaborations. Bett is a member of the IEC TC82 WG7 committee, which draws up standards for concentrator technology. As a member of the European Photovoltaic Platform's Working Group 3, he helped draw up the strategic research agenda and implementation plan for photovoltaic technology.
 

This year's Becquerel Prize was the seventeenth one awarded. After Fraunhofer ISE founder Prof. Adolf Goetzberger and Prof. Joachim Luther (Institute director up to 2006), Dr. Andreas Bett is the third Fraunhofer ISE researcher to receive this prestigious award.