Professor Michael Graetzel is a physical chemist who investigates photo-induced electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their use to generate electricity and chemical fuels from sunlight.
He is known for his discovery of dye-sensitized solar cells, which engendered the advent of perovskite photovoltaics, constituting the most exciting breakthrough in the recent history of photovoltaics. He used his revolutionary concept of three-dimensional mesoscopic semiconductor junctions also to realize photo-electrochemical devices for the solar generation of hydrogen and reduction of carbon dioxide.
Michael received numerous awards for his scientific achievements, including the Millennium Technology Prize, Balzan Prize, BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, Marcel Benoist Prize, Global Energy Prize, King Faisal International Science Prize and Rank Prize in Optoelectronics. He obtained a PhD from the Technical University of Berlin and received twelve honorary doctor’s degrees from European and Asian universities.
He is am elected member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, the German Academy of Science (Leopoldina), Chinese Academy of Science and other learned societies. A recent bibliometric ranking by Stanford University places Michael first amongst 100,000 world-wide leading scientists across all fields of science.
Professional position
- Professor and Director, Institut des sciences et ingénierie chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL)
