Catalyzing Innovation and Collaboration for Photovoltaics Research and Development: An NSF Workshop

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1027337WoldenIntellectual MeritThis proposal aims to sponsor a workshop that will explore new paradigms for stimulating innovation and creating industrial-academic partnerships in the field of photovoltaics. The participants will include experts and leaders in photovoltaics research and product development from universities, large companies, small firms and national laboratories. Through a combination of invited talks and breakout sessions, the participants will brainstorm the future technical emphasis in photovoltaics, build networks for potential partnerships and collaborations to accelerate technology transfer from academia to commercial market, and propose new strategies to foster future collaborations among universities, large companies, small firms and national laboratories. Broader ImpactsThe broader impact of this project will be the potential to serve as a catalyst for stimulating innovations in photovoltaics. Maintaining a leadership in solar industry not only will benefit the environment, but also create more jobs domestically. The major challenges that hinder the wide adoption of solar electricity are the high cost, low manufacturability and/or non-abundant sources of the raw materials. The ultimate solutions to these challenges depend on the continuous innovations in photovoltaics technologies. Research collaborations among universities, large companies, small firms and national laboratories are essential to ensure that US is on the leading edge in this area. This workshop emphasizes on the technology transfer to bring the advance technologies from research level into viable products, and eventually to commercial market, thus realizing societal benefit and economic impact.