King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has reaffirmed its commitment to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030 which draws on this great nation's intrinsic strengths on its way towards a sustainable future.

KAUST Solar Center (KSC) is excited to share our science and technology with you within the framework of the KAUST Research Open Week.

Sunlight offers a potential solution in the search for an energy source that does not harm the planet, but this depends on finding a way to efficiently turn electromagnetic energy into electricity. Researchers from KAUST have shown how a known herbicide can improve this conversion in organic devices.

Understanding how particles travel through a device is vital for improving the efficiency of solar cells. Researchers from KAUST, working with an international team of scientists, have now developed a set of design guidelines for enhancing the performance of molecular materials.

Advanced ink formulations could be the key to turning perovskite solar cells (PSCs) from heroes of academic labs into commercially successful products. Researchers at KAUST have developed a perovskite ink tailor-made for a mass manufacturing process called slot-die coating, producing PSCs that captured solar energy with high efficiency. The ink could also be coated onto silicon to create perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells that capture even more of the Sun’s energy.

Insight into energy losses that affect the conversion of light into electricity could help enhance organic solar cell efficiencies. A KAUST-led team of organic chemists, materials engineers, spectroscopists and theoretical physicists from six research groups has extensively evaluated efficiency-limiting processes in organic photovoltaic systems.

A simple process for depositing silicon oxide onto silicon wafers could be a great step forward for making silicon-based solar cells. Researchers at KAUST have used a method called plasma processing in a chamber filled with carbon dioxide gas.

A polymer previously used to protect solar cells may find new applications in consumer electronics, reveals a KAUST team studying thin films capable of converting thermal energy into electricity.

A process developed at KAUST for depositing extremely thin and smooth films can make it easier to manufacture stable solar cells based on quantum dot technology.

Understanding how solar cell operation changes as it moves from the lab into the real world is essential for optimizing their design prior to mass production. KAUST researchers show how perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells function in a sunny and hot environment.

Evolutionary search has helped scientists predict the lowest energy structure of a two-dimensional (2D) material, B2P6, with some remarkable features, including structural anisotropy and Janus geometry.

Solar cells can now be made so thin, light and flexible that they can rest on a soap bubble. The new cells, which efficiently capture energy from light, could offer an alternative way to power novel electronic devices, such as medical skin patches, where conventional energy sources are unsuitable.

A novel technique for mass-producing better-performing perovskite-based solar cells could lay the foundations for next-generation devices that have more efficient power than currently available technologies.

Better understanding the science that underpins well-known techniques for developing quantum dots—tiny semiconducting nanocrystals—can help reduce the guesswork of current practices as material scientists use them to make better solar panels and digital displays.

Assistant Professor of Material Science and Engineering Derya Baran has been selected as a new member of the Global Young Academy (GYA), the first member to represent a Saudi Arabian institution.

Glasgow-born Professor Iain McCulloch has been named the winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Interdisciplinary Prize.

Iain McCulloch, the director of the KAUST Solar Center, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. McCulloch, who is a KAUST professor of chemical science, as well as a Chair in Polymer Materials at Imperial College London, has made discoveries in chemical design and synthesis to control the assembly of organic semiconducting molecules to form ordered structures with specific electrical and optical properties, for use in a range of devices including transistors and solar cells.

KSC Center Director, Prof. Iain McCulloch is awarded the 2020 Blaise Pascal Medal in Materials Sciences

Long-lived inverted perovskite solar cells can achieve efficiencies close to that of highly efficient yet fragile conventional perovskite solar cells, researchers at KAUST have shown. The discovery could lead to perovskite solar panels that have operational lifetimes and light-capturing efficiencies that rival traditional silicon solar panels, but that are significantly simpler, less energy-intensive and less expensive to make.

An organic semiconductor photocatalyst that significantly enhances the generation of hydrogen gas could lead to more efficient energy storage technologies.