At home, in the office, in industry: switched-mode power supplies are ubiquitous in our everyday lives. They convert alternating current into direct current, which smartphones, laptops and the like need just as much as charging stations for electric cars and entire logistics or data centers. So far, these have had to be replaced after typically nine years of continuous operation. The spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Digital Power Systems (DPS) has now demonstrated power supplies with a service life of 50 years in tests.
VDI Nachrichten has published a report on the latest LTI research results on Bragg mirrors. Here, researchers have succeeded in producing highly efficient mirrors, so-called Bragg mirrors, at low cost using nano-inks. The fields of application are diverse, such as in laser technology, advertising and sensor technology.
In addition, Prof. Dr. Uli Lemmer published a Spotify Podcast on this topic. Please follow the link: Spotify
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On Friday, September 23, 2022, the Lichttechnisches Institut (LTI) - one of the "flagships of KIT", had every reason to celebrate, according to Prof. h.c. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Knebel, Head of Division III - Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. In his greetings, Prof. Dr. Thomas Hirth, KIT Vice President for Transfer and International Affairs, appreciated the innovative strength of the LTI, from which numerous spin-offs had emerged.
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Uli Lemmer and Prof. Dr. Cornelius Neumann highlighted 100-years of the LTI's history in front of numerous former and current PhD students and employees of the LTI. Exciting insights into current application areas were given by the two invited guest speakers Dr. Matthias Wissert ("CO2 Laser Systems for EUV Lithography") and Dr. Wolfgang Huhn ("The Future of Automotive Lighting").
The ceremony was moderated by Dr.-Ing. h.c. Franz-Josef Bierbrauer, chairman of the Hochschulgemeinschaft für Lichttechnik (HfL).
Dielectric mirrors, also called Bragg mirrors, can reflect light almost completely. This makes them suitable for countless applications, for example in camera systems, microscopy, medical technology or sensor systems. Until now, these mirrors had to be produced in expensive vacuum apparatus. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now printed Bragg mirrors in high quality with inkjet printers for the first time. The process could open the way to digital manufacturing of customized mirrors. The results appeared in Advanced Materials.
In addition, Prof. Dr. Uli Lemmer published a Spotify Podcast on this topic. Please follow the link: Spotify
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Raphael is a masters student in the field of electrical engineering at KIT. For his masters thesis Prof. Ulrich Lemmer connected him with Prof. Mathias Kolle, head of the Laboratory for bio-inspired Photonic Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since January 2022, Raphael joined Kolles research group as Visiting Student and since then he works in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the past six month he wrote his masters thesis in Kolles group about the "Deformation sensing and object identification with elastochromic photonic materials“.
Light management, high-throughput laser interconnections and industrial coationg methods pave the way to the world’s first all perovskite tandem solar module - The team of T.T.Prof. U. Paetzold reports in Nature Energy
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Stacking solar cells on top of each other increases efficiency. Researchers from the Perovskite Photovoltaics Taskforce, together with partners in the EU project PERCISTAND, have now produced perovskite/CIS tandem solar cells with an efficiency of almost 25 percent - the highest to date for this technology.
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In addition to high acquisition costs, a lack of aesthetics is proving to be the reason for the low market share of solar installations in Germany. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, colored solar cells made of inexpensive perovskite semiconductor material have now been developed that can be integrated into building facades and simultaneously imitate the appearance of common construction materials.
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Ms. M.Sc. Kristina Geistert was awarded the study prize of the SEW EURODRIVE STIFTUNG 2020 on 7.5.2021.
The award was given due to her outstanding study performance and master thesis on the topic "Production of perovskite solar cells based on non-hazardous volatile solvent systems". We congratulate the award winner and wish the PhD student at the Institute of Light Technology continued success.
In nature plant fragrances attract insects. But they are also used in industry, for example in the production of perfumes and aromas. In order to reliably, quickly and objectively distinguish the scents of mint, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed an electronic nose with an artificial sense of smell in an interdisciplinary collaboration: With high precision, it can recognize different types of mint - making it suitable for applications ranging from pharmaceutical quality control to the observation of mint oil as an environmentally friendly bioherbicide.
Upscaling perovskite photovoltaics from cell to module level with scalable processes is a key challenge. Researchers at IMT and LTI have now produced perovskite solar modules with almost no loss of scaling. They combine laser-scribed interconnection lines with the ease of co-evaporated perovskites.
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LTI startup Digital Power Systems (DPS) will be exhibiting at the digital Hannovermesse from April 12-16, 2021.
In this context, an information film on the technology has also been created: Rethinking Power Supplies
Effective March 1st, 2021, Ulrich W. Paetzold has been appointed to the Tenure-Track-Professorship Next Generation Photovoltaics of the KIT Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in Area III. Ulrich W. Paetzold and his interdisciplinary team develop and research new materials, future-oriented device architectures, and innovative manufacturing processes for perovskite photovoltaics. The enormous progress in perovskite research makes this material system a beacon of hope for high-performance and cost-effective solar cells.
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Thermoelectric generators, or TEGs, convert ambient heat into electrical energy. They provide a maintenance-free, environmentally friendly and self-sufficient power supply for the ever-growing number of sensors and devices for the Internet of Things (IoT) and a way to recover waste heat. Scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed three-dimensional component architectures with novel, printable thermoelectric materials. These could represent a milestone for the use of low-cost TEGs. They report their results in the journals npj Flexible Electronics (DOI: 10.1038/s41528-020-00098-1) and ACS Energy Letters (DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.0c02159).
With effect from November 2, 2020, Alexander Colsmann was awarded the title of "Extraordinary Professor" by the KIT President. KIT thus honors his successful activities in research and teaching. Mr. Colsmann represents the research area "Organic Optoelectronics". He heads a research group at the Materials Science Center for Energy Systems (MZE). We are pleased about this award and wish Mr. Colsmann the best.
Dr. Michael Heidinger has won first place with his technology transfer project "Homogeneous paint curing by means of an UV LED array" in cooperation with the industrial partner MPG Light Systems(http://www.mpg-lightsystems.com/). The company Robert Bosch GmbH honored the project with a prize money of 3000 € as "an outstanding example of the innovative strength and transfer performance of KIT."
Dr. Tobias Abzieher receives one of the renowned Young Scientist Awards 2020 of the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung for his dissertation. Due to its high relevance for the sustainable and responsible use of resources, the foundation chose the work of Dr. Abzieher as one of the three best technical and scientific dissertations in Baden-Württemberg in 2019/20.
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