Dieter Gruen

Gruen’s current research involves creating a revolutionary graphene-based photovoltaic (PV) cell. He has now produced, using laboratories within the University of Illinois, Chicago, a prototype graphene PV that has the highest voltage of any PVs available today (2021). He holds the US and foreign patents for the development and use of these graphene PVs. The most recent and most comprehensive US patent, entitled "High efficiency graphene/wide band-gap semiconductor heterojunction solar cells," was granted on November 10, 2020. These cells will have significant advantages over today’s silicon-based PVs because, 1) based upon their atomic characteristics, they have a theoretical efficiency of approximately 50%, three time that of today's silicon cells, 2) they will be produced using inexpensive, readily available, nontoxic materials, and 3) unlike silicon, they will be flexible, similar to a sheet of aluminum foil, making their application to irregular surfaces, much easier. These graphene cells will vastly improve the economics for large-scale solar installations, which using molten salt and other types of energy storage, now have the ability to produce utility level electric power day and night. The cells can also be used in numerous smaller scale installations, thereby creating a solution for producing lower cost electricity on a worldwide basis. In summary, this advanced technology has the capability to completely revolutionize the widespread use of renewable energy for the benefit of mankind.

Gruen's wife Dolores, a psychologist who received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, died on March 19, 2015, at the age of 90 and after 66 years of marriage. Dr. Gruen has two daughters, Erica and Karen, and a son, Jeffery. Dr. Gruen also has nine grandchildren (Daniel, Miriam, Anna, Lev, Zohara, Micah, Aleya, Benjamin, and Moshe Aaron) and three great-grandchildren, Julia Devorah, Samuel Lewis, and Arthur. Gruen turned 100 in November 2022.

Gruen worked at Argonne National Laboratory for over 60 years, retiring in 2012. The following provides more detail on his lifetime of work as a scientist in chemistry, materials science and energy science.

Dieter Martin Gruen (born November 21, 1922) is a German-born American scientist, who was a senior member of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received B.S. (1944, cum laude) and M.S. (1947) degrees in chemistry from Northwestern University and the Ph.D. (1951) in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.