Flexible solar cells straight from Finland

At the end of May GOLD Finland organized Summer School in Flexible Solar Cells. Event was held in Oulu, the city of Nokia mobile origins. In order to assure high quality of lectures, organizers invited high profile speakers from Germany, Belgium and United Kingdom. Since the industry shows increasing interested in renewable and cheap energy production the topic of summer school was carefully selected and flexible solar cells subject was chosen.  Attendees were mostly graduate students from Finland and Region 8.  Nevertheless, some undergraduate students and industry representatives were present. Very intensive lectures started with introduction to physics of solar cells presented by Uli Wuerfel from Fraunhofer Institut für Solare Energie Systeme, Germany. Consequently, Tom Aernouts and Eszter Voroshazi from IMEC, Belgium gave the lecture about organic solar cells and their reliability. Finally, Arman Ahnood and Yuji Suzuki from London Centre for Nanotechnology, UK, familiarized audience with concepts of thin film silicon solar cells and implementation of micro- and nano-sturctures in solar cells. The event gathered students and professionals from the printed electronics field that share the visions and dreams that solar energy harvesting does not need to be “rigid” and could be cheaply implemented everywhere.