"Photonic Crystal Light Trapping: The Key to Breaking Photovoltaic Efficiency Barriers" The thermodynamic power conversion efficiency limit for silicon solar cells is close to 33%, while commercially available cells have efficiencies in the 17-20% range. The world record for silicon solar cells has inched upward from 25% to 26.7%, in the past twenty years, using cell thicknesses ranging from 450 microns to 165 microns. Photonic crystal architectures enable broadband light absorption beyond the longstanding Lambertian limit and allow silicon to absorb sunlight nearly as well as a direct-bandgap semiconductor. When combined with state-of-the-art electronics, a technological paradigm shift appears imminent. In this lecture, I describe how wave-interference-based solar light-trapping in realistic photonic crystals can break longstanding barriers, enabling flexible, thin-film, silicon to achieve an unprecedented, single-junction, power conversion of 31% [1, 2]. 1. "Towards 30% Power Conversion Efficiency in Thin-Silicon Photonic-Crystal Solar Cells," S. Bhattacharya, I. Baydoun, Mi Lin and Sajeev John, Physical Review Applied, 11, 014005 (2019) 2. “Beyond 30% conversion efficiency in silicon solar cells” S. Bhattacharya and Sajeev John (to be published) Robert Resnick was a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and headed the interdisciplinary science curriculum. He authored and co-authored seven textbooks on relativity, quantum physics, and general physics, translated into more than 47 languages. Resnick believed that physics could make all other knowledge more meaningful. He said, “We’ve humanized the scientist; now we must scientize the humanist. We didn’t try to cover physics...we uncovered it.”