Michael Grätzel, Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He holds a doctor’s degree from the Technical University of Berlin and honorary doctor’s degrees from the Universities of Uppsala and Turin. He has over 600 publications in peer-reviewed journals, two books and over 40 patents. He has received numerous prestigious awards including the Millennium 2000 European Innovation prize, the 2001 Faraday Medal of the British Royal Society, the 2001 Dutch Havinga Award, the 2004 Italgas Prize, 1998 and 2002 McKinsey Venture Awards, the 2005 Gerischer Prize, and the 2007 Harvey Prize. According to several proclamations of Thomson ISI in 2001, he is one of the top 100 most-cited chemists and No. 1 of the high H-index physical chemist.

　  He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic materials and their optoelectronic applications. His work led to ground breaking studies in the area of mesoscopic semiconductors and has stimulated a wide front of new research and leading, in particular, to the invention of a new type of solar cell based on nanocrystalline oxide semiconductor films. The prototype of this new photovoltaic family is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). These cells operate in an entirely different fashion than conventional solar p/n junction semiconductor photovoltaic devices, mimicking the principles of natural photosynthesis.