RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Solar energy is one of the most promising, widely adopted renewable energy sources, but raising the efficiency of solar cells that convert light into electricity remains a challenge. Scientists have turned to the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart to understand how strategically designing imperfections in the system could lead to more efficient energy conversion.

German scientists have succeeded in observing electron motion in real time by using laser pulses and supercomputing simulations. In their pursuit to better understand electrons’ behaviour during a chemical reaction, the researchers of the University of Paderborn and the Fritz Haber Institute Berlin have leveraged supercomputing resources at the HLRS to model this phenomenon. Their findings were recently published in Science.

Scientists at the Paderborn University and the University of Duisburg–Essen recently published a paper in Nature about phase transitions. High performance computing resources at the HLRS enabled the investigators to explain the physics behind their unexpected discovery.