Harry Atwater’s research centers around two interwoven research themes: photovoltaics and solar energy, and plasmonics and optical metamaterials. Atwater and his group have been active in photovoltaics research for more than 20 years. Recently they have created new photovoltaic devices including silicon wire array solar cells and transferred-layer designs for III-V semiconductor and multi-junction cells. They are also making advances in plasmonic light absorber structures for III-V compound and silicon thin films. Atwater is an early pioneer in surface plasmon photonics; he gave the name to the field of plasmonics in 2001. Atwater has authored or co-authored over 200 publications, and his group’s developments in the solar and plasmonics field have been featured in Scientific American and in research papers in Science, Nature Materials, Nature Photonics and Advanced Materials.
Atwater currently serves as Director of the DOE Energy Frontier Research Center on Light-Material Interactions in Solar Energy Conversion. He was also recently named Director of the Resnick Institute for Science, Energy and Sustainability, Caltech’s largest endowed research program focused on energy. Atwater is the founder and chief technical advisor for two venture-backed photovoltaic companies: Alta Devices and Caelux Solar Energy.