In times of sustainability new energy materials are one of the key aspects in research and development. Renewable energy sources have become the main focus in economy and politics due to many reasons like the climate change, the decreasing resources of crude oil and the cut-off of all nuclear power plants in Germany. 

This working group of the Silicon Institute develops alternative approaches towards new energy materials in different fields of the energy sector.
Systematic investigations and synthesis of novel components for batteries represents one part of our present work. As batteries can be used as energy storage devices in vehicles in the long term, they facilitate a change to alternative actuation systems and fuels. Concerning this matter the German government backs the research as it intends to have one million electric cars on German roads by 2020. Commercialization of this new type of power engine could not be realized up to now as the materials are still suffering from problems like high costs, low efficiency and safety risks. Besides the electromobility sector as an upcoming consumer, batteries are used in a wide range of applications, especially in small electronic devices like mobile phones, laptops and camcorders.

Another focus of the energy material group of the Silicon Institute is on photovoltaics. As the demand for solar power technology steadily increases the current systems have to be improved continuously. Up to now the commercially produced solar cells are quite expensive due to the fact that the production process is energetically consuming and the raw material costs are high. The investigations of the group mainly concern the synthesis of new materials and the elucidation of the fundamental mechanisms during the production process. 

In comparison to the other key aspects, organic light emitting diodes are not directly linked to alternative energy sources, but efficiently reduce the energy consumption in comparison to commonly used liquid crystal displays. One of the main reasons for the slow commercialization so far is the relatively short life time of the diodes since they are unstable towards air and humidity. In this research area the Silicon Institute mainly focuses on investigations and characteristics of alternative systems.

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