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  • Laureates
    • Laureate 2024
    • Prize 2024
    • Past laureates
    • Subsequent Nobel Prize laureates
  • Nomination
    • Nomination 2025
  • The award ceremony
    • The award ceremony 2024
    • The award ceremony 2023
    • The award ceremony 2022
    • The award ceremony 2021
    • The award ceremony 2020
    • The award ceremony 2019
    • The award ceremony 2018
    • The award ceremonies of the past
  • Activities
    • Lecture 2025
    • Workshop 2024
    • Lecture 2024
  • Marcel Benoist
    • The founder
    • The legacy
  • Foundation
    • Foundation
    • News
    • Board of Trustees
    • Patronage Committee and Friends
    • Create excellence!
    • Foundation assets
    • Contact

Michael Grätzel

Laureate 2013: Michael Grätzel

Solar cells function like leaves

Michael Grätzel is a chemist who invented a new type of solar cell to convert sunlight into electricity. This is a dye-sensitised cell that mimics the natural process of photosynthesis in green plants, the sensitised dye taking on the function of chlorophyll. Unlike standard silicon cells, which are quite expensive, the ‘Grätzel’ cell can be made with relatively inexpensive materials. It therefore offers one of the most promising ways of exploiting solar energy and is especially useful for generating electricity in small installations, for example in the developing world.

Contact

Marcel Benoist Foundation
State Secretariat for Education,
Research and Innovation SERI
Einsteinstrasse 2
CH – 3003 Bern

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