Optical displays and communication have a tremendous impact on modern life. We routinely interact with tactile smart phones and tablets, televisions, laser projection panels and constantly use internet services. Glass is the constituent material of transparent screens and optical fibres, which are essential elements of optical displays and communication. CORNING and ICFO, the industrial and academic partners, respectively, of the proposed ITN action (NANO-GLASS), aim at introducing disruptive nano-structuring designs and methods for glass display screens and optical fibres, with the PhD students (ESRs) playing a pivotal role in undertaking challenging projects with high industrial relevance. Potential outcomes of the research programme include optical screens without reflections, improving visibility in sunlight, self-cleaning tactile display that do not leave finger-prints, car windows that enable head up laser projection whilst still being transparent, optical fibres that generate quantum signals with high efficiency and highly secure encryption of sensitive information over the internet. CORNING has created Gorilla glass, the premier material for any kind of display screen today, and introduced the first low loss optical silica fibre which, among the others, has allowed the data transmission powering internet. ICFO and the participating groups are world-leaders in nano-photonics and quantum technologies, central topics to NANO-GLASS. Starting from an ongoing collaboration, the ESRs will face ambitious scientific and technical challenges, with the unique opportunity to bridge academic (fundamental) research to product (industrial) development. They will become leaders in highly relevant fields for the future society, which is increasingly permeated by ever more sophisticated display and communication technologies.

This ESPResSo-project aims to bring the novel emerging hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite-based solar cell (PSC) technology to its next maturity level. In recent years (see Figure 1), this solution-processable solar technology has reached cell efficiency values rivalling those of established thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology (CIGS, CdTe), even approaching crystalline Si (c-Si) records. The challenge is now to transfer this unprecedented progress from its cell level into a scalable, stable, low-cost technology on module level. The consortium brought together here has alternative materials, insights in novel cell concepts and architectures, and the processing know-how and equipment at hand to overcome these barriers and realize following global objective: Demonstrate a highly efficient (>17%) perovskite-based 35x35cm² module architecture that shows long-term (>20 years) reliable performance as deduced from IEC-compliant test conditions. This module is to be produced with industry-relevant low CAPEX manufacturing techniques validating a potential electricity cost as low as 0.05€/kWh in Southern Europe. Installing an actual building-integrated facade element will validate the potential contribution of this technology to the future European energy supply system. Additionally, prototyping advanced, arbitrary-shaped module architectures with specific materials and process combinations will emphasize that new highly innovative applications like on flexible substrates or with high semi-transparency are well accessible on mid- to longer-term with this very promising thin-film PV technology.

RAISELIFE focuses on extending the in-service lifetime of five key materials for concentrated solar power technologies: 1) protective and anti-soiling coatings of primary reflectors, 2) high-reflective surfaces for heliostats, 3) high-temperature secondary reflectors, 4) receiver coatings for solar towers and line-focus collectors, 5) corrosion resistant high-temperature metals and coatings for steam and molten salts. The project brings together a broad consortium formed of industry partners, SMEs and research institutes of the concentrating solar thermal and material science sector. The scope has been significantly shaped by the leading EPC of solar tower technology, BrightSource, who constructed Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar tower plant. This unique constellation permits a direct transfer of the obtained results in RAISELIFE into new commercial solar thermal power plant projects within less than 5 years and helps to solve urgent matters of current commercial power plants (e.g. the high temperature oxidation of absorber coatings on metallic tower receivers). For this purpose several TRL6 functional materials are being tested in accelerated climate chamber tests, field-tests under elevated solar flux and in-service in BSIIs power plants, with the final goal of increasing durability and performance and in consequence reducing CAPEX and OPEX. We project that commercial implementation of the subject technologies could account for as much as 2.5-3 euro-cent Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) reduction per kWh of electricity produced for solar tower technology between 2015 and 2020.