To lead environmentally friendly, prosperous, safe and healthy lives, we must find a solution to resolve our pending energy issues. Renewable energy technologies, especially for solar and fuel cells, have been widely studied to offer alternatives to fossil fuel. Unfortunately, the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies still lags far behind that of the conventional resource at the moment. Therefore, it is urgently required to open a new paradigm to push the boundaries in renewable energy systems.

In other words, it is time for coming up with a new integrated approach in presenting a breakthrough for renewables. This can be achieved by combining the varied scale of physical and chemical mechanisms of the energy generation processes particularly for the photon and molecular energy. The process of energy transfer and conversion occurs at nano- or micro-scale between energy carriers - photon, electron and molecule - and quasiparticles - phonon and plasmon - while macro-scale processes take place within the magnitude of energy devices. A multi-scale architecturing technology integrates the nano-, micro- and macro-scale processes to produce certain super-properties so that an energy material or device can possess and show varying superior characteristics in their bodies. To exploit the super-properties that energy devices can have and, ultimately, strengthen the energy transfer and conversion process, a wide range of studies are being carried out.

We, Global Frontier Center for Multiscale Energy Systems, were established under the support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology on September 2011. We aspire to bring the technologies of renewable energy such as solar and fuel cells onto the new paradigm so that they can compete with those of fossil fuels. We will make strenuous efforts to build our original technology for accomplishing a clean, high-efficient, and low-cost future energy system and, consequently, to advance the national competitiveness and contribute to the global society.

Thank you for your interests.

Director Mansoo Choi
Global Frontier Center for Multiscale Energy System/ Seoul National University