PERC pioneers awarded 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

Professor Martin Green, Professor Andrew Blakers, Dr Aihua Wang and Dr Jianhua Zhao have been acknowledged for their research and development work that led to PERC and its role in underpinning the growth of high performance, low-cost solar electricity.

“It is a privilege to receive the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering alongside Martin Green, Aihua Wang and Jianhua Zhao. The QEPrize aims to inspire a new generation of engineers and I hope that this year these engineers will be inspired, like me, to create solutions that can help us tackle the biggest challenges faced by humanity, such as climate change,” said Professor Blakers.

The 2023 Laureates improved the energy conversion efficiency of silicon cells by improving the quality of the top and the rear surface of standard silicon solar cells. PERC introduced an additional layer on the back surface that helped prevent recombination and further, reflected unused photons back into the silicon to generate more electrons.