Transcript for John Wager describes OSU's involvement in solar cell research

Hi my name is John Wager.

I'm a professor of electrical engineering

in the school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

If you look at all the alternative

energy scenarios, solar energy, and

solar energy conversion,

is probably the most attractive

because there's so much of solar energy available.

However, that being said,

it's difficult to efficiently capture

that solar radiation and turn it into

direct energy.

We're looking at thin film solar cells.

What our objective is is to try to

come up with the design of new material

sets, that potentially could be useful

in next generation thin film solars cells.

We're emphasizing environmentally

benign materials.

We also- there are a couple

of the materials that are relatively costly,

and if you anticipate how many acres

of solar cells, how many miles of solar cells

if we're successful in this project,

you really want to choose materials

that are low cost.

If we could, potentially, come up with

new solar cell absorbers,

it's, in terms of alternative energy,

it would be a very, very good thing.