Day Three: Panel Discussion-the Future of Energy with Light
Baohua Jia
Day three of the Congress started with a very fascinating talk given by Toshihiko Iwasaki, Konica Minolta, Japan. He reviewed comprehensively the status of OLED lighting activities at KONICA MINOLTA as well as the advancements in OLED materials and systems. He also presented the latest development on all-phosphorescent white OLED device, progress on solution-processed OLED technologies and the prospects for future development. I was very impressed to see the world’s best efficacy OLED, which reaches a efficacy of 139 lm/W. Most exciting of all is the commission of the World’s first roll-to-roll OLED mass production plant, which could produce about 1 million panels per month. This is certainly a very encouraging news for all the researchers working in the OLED field.
Image: Toshihiko Iwasaki is presenting the future pespects for OLED lighting
Solar-pumped laser
Two professors from Toyota Central R&D labs and RIKEN, Japan, respectively, presented their interesting work on solar-pumped laser. A coupling mirror and a doped fiber can convert normal sun light into high powered laser. This sounds very amazing to me. Currently this technology still suffers from low efficiency of about 5% and seems to be premature for practical applications. I suppose it might be able to find unique applications in space, where laser is required but no other pump is available.
Panel discussion about “The Future of Energy with Light”
This afternoon there was an interesting Discussion Panel Forum on ‘the Future of Energy with Light’. The panel consisted of international scientific and policy experts including
- Professor Ken Baldwin, Director of the Energy Change Inst. at The Australian National Univ., Australia and General Chair of the Congress
- Professor Steve Chu, Stanford Univ. USA and former Energy Secretary to President Obama
- Hans-Josef Fell, Architect of Renewable Energy Policy in the German Parliament, Germany
- Professor Armin Aberle, Director, Solar Energy Research Inst. of Singapore, Singapore
- Jim Foresi, Chief Scientist of Suncore, China
- Professor Andrew Blakers, Director, Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Energy Change Inst. at The Australian National Univ., Australia
The panel discussed the solution to the energy challenge by concluding that with our sun we should have a bright and clean energy future. However to increase the large scale deployment of solar electricity, increasing light-electricity conversion efficiency is not the only thing to do. Changing the business model and reducing the cost of the entire system also hold the key to allow solar electricity to play a more important role.
Image: Panel discussion about “The Future of Energy with Light”. Left to rignt: Professor Steve Chu, Hans-Josef Fell, Professor Armin Aberle, Professor Andrew Blakers, Dr. Jim Foresi, and Professor Ken Baldwin.
Congress dinner
The highlight of the day was the Congress Banquet at the National Museum of Australia. The environment and the food were both superb. However the most enjoyable thing was the talk given by Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb. There was no lengthy speech, but every word he said was very well received. The message I got was we are let by the public to do research and we should endeavour to make our research to serve the public.
