AUSBILDUNG IN DEUTSCHLAND

If you know German, you will know that "Ausbildung in Deutschland" translates to English meaning "Training in Germany".

For the fourth year, ESS has participated in the International exchange program held by Gateway Technical College in Racine. This year ESS hosted one student, Laura Steigerwald of Johannesberg, Germany. She spent 3 days at ESS learning many aspects of the business. One of their "assignments" was to write and post on our blog, a story about the German educational system and how it differs from the American system. She did a lot of writing, in between all of the other activities, and came up with the wonderful blog post. Please enjoy her blog and many thanks to Gateway for having this unique program. 

Apprenticeship in Germany

Hello my name is Laura Steigerwald, I’m from Germany. At the moment I’m doing a student exchange and in this week I’m doing a job sharing at ESS. During the time in America I recognized that our education system in Germany is different.

I’m doing a apprenticeship as an industrial clerk in the second year. A common apprenticeship takes 3 years – it’s a dual system. The company works very closely with the school. And I get paid during the apprenticeship.

The school is responsible for the theory and general education. They offer subjects with reference to the profession. Also, sports are important because we don’t move very much in the office.

The company is responsible for the practical part. During our apprenticeship we go thru all the different departments to understand the processes of a company and to learn all the different tasks. For example Marketing, Human Resources, Accounting, Sales, Purchasing etc.. For the most companies it also very important to improve our English. So we have not only at school English lessons – but also in-house lessons. Furthermore, I can apply for a stay abroad for two month – for example to come to Turkey or Holland.

The Aim is to train their students so that they are able to work in every of their departments. And you have the chance to work in that company after the apprenticeship. In my opinion it is a chance to find my favorite department.

Posted by Laura Steigerwald of Johannesberg, Germany

NEW SOLAR TECHNOLOGY

Solar cells made from black silicon

Solar cells convert three-quarters of the energy contained in the Sun's spectrum into electricity - yet the infrared spectrum is entirely lost in standard solar cells. In contrast, black silicon solar cells are specifically designed to absorb this part of the Sun's spectrum - and researchers have recently succeeded in doubling their overall efficiency.

The Sun blazes down from a deep blue sky - and rooftop solar cells convert this solar energy into electricity. Not all of it, however: Around a quarter of the Sun's spectrum is made up of infrared radiation which cannot be converted by standard solar cells - so this heat radiation is lost. One way to overcome this is to use black silicon, a material that absorbs nearly all of the sunlight that hits it, including infrared radiation, and converts it into electricity. But how is this material produced?

Black silicon is produced by irradiating standard silicon with femtosecond laser pulses under a sulfur containing atmosphere. This structures the surface and integrates sulfur atoms into the silicon lattice, making the treated material appear black. If manufacturers were to equip their solar cells with this black silicon, it would significantly boost the cells' efficiency by enabling them to utilize the full Sun spectrum.

Researchers have now managed to double the efficiency of black silicon solar cells - in other words, they have created cells that can produce more electricity from the infrared spectrum.

This enabled the scientists to solve a key problem of black silicon: In normal silicon, infrared light does not have enough energy to excite the electrons into the conduction band and convert them into electricity, but the sulfur incorporated in black silicon forms a kind of intermediate level. You can compare this to climbing a wall: The first time you fail because the wall is too high, but the second time you succeed in two steps by using an intermediate level.

The researchers have already successfully built prototypes of black silicon solar cells and their next step will be to try and merge these cells with commercial technology.  They hope to be able to increase the efficiency of commercial solar cells - which currently stands at approximately 17 percent - by one percent by combining them with black silicon. Their starting point is a standard commercial solar cell: The experts simply remove the back cover and incorporate black silicon in part of the cell, thereby creating a tandem solar cell that contains both normal and black silicon.

The researchers are also planning a spin-off: This will be used to market the laser system that manufacturers will be able to acquire to expand their existing solar cell production lines. Manufacturers would then be able to produce the black silicon themselves and include it in the cells as standard.