UC Solar Overview

UC Solar is a new multi-campus research institute made up of faculty from the University of California’s Merced, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Davis, and San Diego campuses. UC Solar officially launched in 2010.

UC Solar Director Professor Roland Winston (right) and UC Merced graduate students (L to R) Kevin Balkoski and Heather Poiry with a new concentrating solar thermal collector prototype.

Headquartered at UC Merced, UC Solar conducts cross-disciplinary research that leads to new and improved solar energy generation technologies and educates the energy industry and the next generation of energy scholars.

Initial UC Solar research areas include advancing the state-of-the-art in solar concentration (for photovoltaic and thermal systems), employing nanotechnology in both collector/concentrator and device structures, and developing new devices that capture useable energy in the UV portion of the solar spectrum.

Currently, UC Solar-affiliated researchers at UC Merced are designing non-tracking solar concentrators, developing more efficient optics for indoor lighting, and designing and building a low-cost solar thermal cooling prototype. Participating researchers at UC Berkeley are focusing on achieving very high-efficiency devices using nanoneedles, nanowires and quantum dots, and researchers at UC Santa Barbara are developing materials to harness power in the ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum.

Faculty and students conducting research within UC Solar have access to the expertise that has been developed in UC Merced’s Nonimaging Optics Laboratory, UC Berkeley’s Microfabrication and Optoelectronics Laboratories and UC Santa Barbara’s California Nanosystems Institute.

Through collaboration, UC Solar researchers create innovative solar technologies that can be brought to the marketplace quickly and efficiently. UC Solar researchers partner with industry participants through the UC Solar Industry Consortium, which attracts companies that design, produce, implement, manage and invest in solar technologies.

The UC Solar Director is UC Merced Professor Roland Winston, and the UC Solar Co-Directors are UC Berkeley Professor Constance Chang-Hasnain and UC Santa Barbara Professor Umesh Mishra. For more information, contact Ron Durbin at rdurbin@ucmerced.edu or (209) 228-4565.