We are a diverse group of photovoltaic engineers and scientists from all over the world, with a focus on high impact, award-winning, fundamental research and industry-focused solar cell technology development. Graduates of the world’s first and only Bachelor of Engineering degree specialising in photovoltaics and solar energy, we have a solid understanding of the PV manufacturing process and the implications of process changes for overall device performance and reliability. 

Our team members span multiple career levels and provide mentoring, supervision and support to younger researchers and the other nominees. We’re stronger because of the diversity of our people and have fostered an inclusive environment for researchers within the team and beyond. Enabling them to champion inclusiveness and respect and to encourage other opinions and perspectives. 

Our research covers all industrial cell technologies including PERC, TOPCon and Silicon Heterojunction (SHJ). We also regularly collaborate with our industry partners, which includes many of the world’s largest photovoltaic manufacturers, ensuring that our research and development has commercial relevance and a direct path to impacting everyday life. 

Specialisations: 

  • Selective emitters and laser processing. 
  • Defect engineering (gettering/thermal processing/hydrogen passivation/illuminated annealing). 
  • Reliability concerns including light-induced degradation (LID), light- and elevated temperature induced degradation (LID) and surface related degradation (SRD). 
  • Efficiency improvements. 
  • Cost reduction such as by increasing efficiencies or reducing the consumption of expensive materials. 
  • Sustainable screen-printed solar cells (targeting significant silver reduction for screen-printed solar cells to ensure a sustainable PV industry at the terawatt level). 
  • Understanding kinetics of defect systems. 
  • Data analysis. 
  • Numerical and device simulations.

Our people

Scientia and ARC DECRA Fellow Brett Hallam
Scientia and ARC DECRA Fellow
Chief Investigator of n-type silicon solar cells ARENA project Ran Chen
Chief Investigator of n-type silicon solar cells ARENA project
ACAP research fellow Li Wang
ACAP research fellow
Scientia and DECRA Fellow Alison Ciesla
Scientia and DECRA Fellow
Postdoctoral fellow of Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics  Moonyong Kim
Postdoctoral fellow of Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics

Contact us

Find more information on all the interesting projects we’re working on and request access to our materials

E: b.hallam@unsw.edu.au

Research partnerships

If you’re interested in becoming a postgraduate research candidate at SPREE, please connect with us. We also welcome partnerships with industry and would love to talk to you.

Julie Lui (postgraduate enquiries) 
E: j.lui@unsw.edu.au

Bram Hoex (research partnerships) 
E: b.hoex@unsw.edu.au