Wim Sinke performs research into the conversion of light into electricity using solar cells. Commercial solar cells currently have a maximum efficiency of around 20%. In the future, however, it should be possible to raise this output to 40% and higher using a variety of techniques. For example, the design and materials used in manufacturing solar cells could be improved substantially. Furthermore, sunlight could also be manipulated to allow cells to utilise it more efficiently. A combined approach, encompassing basic research (such as conducted at the UvA) and applied research and technological development (such as carried out at ECN), is crucial to achieving rapid and major advances in this technology and benefiting from it economically. Sinke wishes to guide this development in his capacity as UvA professor.

Wim Sinke works as programme development manager at ECN Solar Energy in Petten. In addition, he is the chair of the European Photovoltaic Technology Platform and director of the Top Consortium for Knowledge and Innovation (TKI) Solar Energy, which is a national public-private partnership. Sinke is the coordinator and a lecturer for the solar energy module in the Sustainable Energy European Master’s programme at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. He also chairs the programme committee of the Joint Solar Programme, a FOM (Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter) Industrial Partnership Programme. Sinke is also the director of the Efficient Generation of Sustainable Energy programme, which is part of the national Nanotechnology research programme NanoNextNL.