Distinguished Prof. Chung-Wen LAN of Chemical Engineering Wins PVSEC Award

The 2022 World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-8) and the 2022 International Photovoltaic Science and Engineering Conference (PVSEC-32/WCPEC-8/EU PVSEC/IEEE PVSC) was held from September 26th to the 30th in Milan, Italy. During the conference, it was announced that the NTU Distinguished Professor Dr. Chung-Wen Lan of Chemical Engineering won the PVSEC Award (jointly awarded with Prof. Armin Aberle, CEO of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore at the National University of Singapore) in recognition of his outstanding achievements and persevering dedication in the field of photovoltaics. The award ceremony took place later at PVSEC-33 (Nov. 13-17, 2022, Nagoya, Japan). The PVSEC Award is an important award of the conference, and the previous winner in PVSEC-31 is the esteemed Prof. Martin Green; the PVSEC started in 1984 and is one of the world’s three major international conferences in photovoltaics. Prof. Lan also hosted PVSEC-23 in Taipei in 2013.

Prof. Lan founded the Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry Association (TPVIA) in 2007. During his term as the Director of the Photovoltaics Technology Center at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (Feb. 2007-Aug. 2010), he spared no effort in promoting the photovoltaic industry of Taiwan. The high-efficiency multi-crystalline silicon (small-grain technology) developed jointly by Prof. Lan and Sino-American Silicon (SAS) Products Inc. has exerted great influence on the global solar photovoltaic industry, accounting for 70% of the market in 2017, and has accumulated more than 300 GW of capacity so far. With such contributions, Prof. Lan also received the Laudise Prize, the highest honor given by the International Organization for Crystal Growth (IOCG) triennially. During his term as the Director of the Photovoltaics Technology Center, his team proposed the double-layer Al₂O₃/SiNx passivation structure, which has been widely adopted by silicon PERC cells till today. In Energy Taiwan 2021, SEMI awarded Prof. Lan the first PV Taiwan Award in recognition of his contribution to the photovoltaic industry in Taiwan. Recently, Prof. Lan has shifted his focus on the research of energy storage materials, established an NTU-based startup Blue Star Advanced Materials Co., Ltd., and transferred the patented 200kg SiO production technology to Giga Solar Materials Corp. SiO, the silicon-based anode material, can significantly boost the capacity of the lithium-ion battery industry of Taiwan. In addition, since 2010, Prof. Lan has assisted Taiwan Speciality Chemicals Corp. (TSCS) in its transition to the producer of special-purpose gases. The company later started, as the first in Taiwan, the production of disilane, which made TSCS an important supplier of TSMC in 2019.

During his academic career, Prof. Lan has won numerous major awards, including Outstanding Research Award of the National Science and Technology Council; Prof. Tsai-Teh Lai Award, Mr. Kai-Ying Jin Award, and Fellowship of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers; Special Contribution Award of Sino-American Silicon (SAS) Products Inc.; the TECO Award; Technological Achievement Award of the Asian Photovoltaic Industry Association (APVIA); Outstanding Alumnus of National Taipei University of Technology; Outstanding Scholarship of the Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (FAOS); Y. Z. HSU Science Award in the Green Science & Technology category of Far Eastern Y. Z. HSU Science and Technology Memorial Foundation, etc.