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Resnick Fellow Working on solar Materials
Credit: Caltech/AAR
Biofuel Samples in Vials
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EV Charging Station and Data. Images courtesy Steven Low's Netlab
Credit: Courtesy Steven Low's Netlab
Tractor Spraying Fields (L); Resnick Fellow Researching Catalysts for N2 Fixation
Credit: iStock; Caltech/RSI/H.Rusina (R)
Research Teams working on Solar Fuels Projects
Credit: Caltech; Caltech/RSI/H.Rusina (R)
Harry Atwater in Lab with Resnick Fellow
Credit: Caltech; Caltech/AAR (R)
Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow in Lab
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Sunlight to Everything

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Water and Environment Lab (WEL)

Mission

Supporting science and engineering to make materials and build systems that harness sunlight while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and facilitating carbon drawdown.

Overview

Sunlight is an inexhaustible resource. Harnessing its power could drive a circular economy to generate energy, reduce carbon emissions, reduce materials waste, and eventually to generate the negative carbon emissions needed to bring our warming planet back into balance. Through this initiative, research focuses on addressing the challenge of generating all of our society's resource needs from sunlight, including electricity, fuels, chemicals, materials and fertilizers. It addresses the challenges in the coming transformation of everything we make and do, as well as the creation a robust solar-powered energy infrastructure for a secure future.

Important Questions

  • How do we increase the efficiency for solar energy conversion, using more of the solar spectrum?
  • How do we produce cheap and energy-efficient fuels, chemicals and fertilizers using sunlight?
  • How do we leap forward with electricity storage and efficient electrical grids, enabling renewable baseload electricity?
  • How do we capture, convert and sequester carbon dioxide using solar-driven processes?
  • How can information and machine learning be used to accelerate discovery of new materials and molecules for energy technology applications?
  • How can scalable space-based solar power systems be designed to supply energy for the Earth?
Harry A. Atwater
  • Sunlight-to-Everything Initiative Lead; Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science; Director, Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis

Harry A. Atwater

More energy from the sun falls on the earth in one hour than is used by every person in the world over the course of a year. Sunlight could power everything we make and do in our world.

Read More About Harry A. Atwater   >
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