Michael Grätzel ranked #1 in Switzerland and the world
Research.com is a leading academic research portal that publishes an annual ranking of researchers in different fields of science. Their ranking is constructed using H-index data gathered by Microsoft Academic and includes only prominent scientists with an H-index of at least 40 for scientific papers.
In their 2022 analysis for Chemistry, Research.com has ranked Professor Michael Grätzel at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences first in Switzerland and the world.
About Professor Michael Grätzel
Professor Grätzel is world-renowned for inventing the first dye-sensitive solar cell in 1991 with chemist Brian O’Reagan. Just as plants use chlorophyll to turn sunlight into energy, the “Grätzel cells” use industrial dyes, pigments or quantum dots stimulated by sunlight to transmit an electrical charge. Within fifteen years of the original invention, Grätzel evolved the cells into an applied technology that is now being developed in universities and companies worldwide.
Having discovered molecular photovoltaics, Grätzel’s research has focused on designing mesoscopic photosystems based on molecular light harvesters that convert light very efficiently to electricity. He is credited with moving the photovoltaic field beyond the principle of light absorption via diodes to the molecular level. Recently his research engendered a second revolution in photovoltaics prompting the advent of perovskite solar cells. Within only one decade their power conversion efficiency increased from 3 to over 25% rivaling and even exceeding the performance of conventional photovoltaics.
Grätzel also applied his innovative mesoscopic design concept to enhance the power of lithium-ion batteries and to create photoelectrochemical cells that efficiently generate chemical fuels from sunlight, opening up a new path to provide future sources of renewable energy that can be stored.
Grätzel currently directs EPFL’s Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces within the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC). His 1,650 publications have received over 400,000 citations and have an h-index of 282. In 2019, Stanford University ranked Grätzel first of 100,000 top scientists across all fields.