I will review our recent work on the use of nanopatterend metasurfaces to improve the performance of solar cells. I will describe novel nanoscale light coupling and light trapping geometries improving thin-film CIGS cells and enabling a large reduction in their thickness. I will describe light trapping geometries for (ultra-thin) Si IBC cells and will introduce the concept of metagratings composed of resonant light scatterers forming a grating for improved light scattering in the ray optics limit. Finally, I will describe the use of metal nanowires as transparent conductors and our recent work on the use of dielectric nanoscatterers to create colored or white photovoltaics using Si HIT cells.

Albert Polman is program leader of the “Light Management in New Photovoltaic Materials” program at the NWO Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Professor of Photonic Materials for Photovoltaics at the University of Amsterdam. Polman's research group focuses on nanophotovoltaics, the study of light management at the nanoscale to realize solar cells with ultra-high efficiency that can be made at low costs.

Polman is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Fellow of the MRS, OSA, and recipient of ERC Advanced Investigator Grants (2011, 2016), the EPS Research into the Science of Light Prize (2017), the Physica Prize of the Dutch Physical Society (2014), the Julius Springer Award for Applied Physics (2014), the ENI Renewable Energy Award (2012), and the MRS Materials Innovation and Characterization Award (2012). Polman is co-founder of Delmic BV, that brings on the market an instrument for angle-resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy developed in his group.

Polman is also the recipient of the 2017 Frew Fellowship which is awarded biennially by the Australian Academy of Science to distinguished overseas scientists to participate in Australian Spectroscopy Conferences and to visit scientific centres in Australia.