Pietro P. Altermatt is the Principal Scientist of one of the largest silicon solar cell manufacturers, Trina Solar in China. His 27 year experience in PV ranges from rather basic research at UNSW in Sydney, Australia, to joint projects between institutes and industry in Germany, to scaling up the PV industry in China.
 
Pietro P. Altermatt’s main area of research has been the development of physical models for the numerical simulation of crystalline silicon solar cells. Of equal interest to him is the application of these models to simulation strategies tailored to research, development and particularly to mass production. With such simulations, roadmaps for the near-future are developed, predicting the optimum device design, the necessary production equipment, and the feasible silicon material and other materials. At this KAUST Research Conference, he evaluates options how other materials than silicon may come into mainstream in about eight years, for progressing beyond the current mainstream PERC cell technology