Periodic Reporting for period 4 - Uniting PV (Applying silicon solar cell technology to revolutionize the design of thin-film solar cells and enhance their efficiency, cost and stability)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-09-01 bis 2022-08-31
https://zenodo.org/record/5559788#.YWNJ3tpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559794#.YWNL1dpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/3530736#.YWNQktpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559829#.YWNUrtpBw2w
PhD thesis Gizem Birant, focusing on rear surface passivation and light management:
https://zenodo.org/record/2567416#.XaV8y-gzY2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559858#.YWNdBtpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559870#.YWNestpBw2w
https://www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2020/01/pv200010/pv200010.html
https://zenodo.org/record/7182814#.Y0R-Y3ZBw2w
PhD thesis Dilara Buldu, focusing on front surface passivation:
https://zenodo.org/record/1451677#.W7uA0Hszb8o
https://zenodo.org/record/5559833#.YWNWANpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559837#.YWNXJdpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/7182806#.Y0R8oHZBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/7182812#.Y0R9k3ZBw2w
Postdoc work Jessica de Wild, co-supervising all 3 PhD students:
https://zenodo.org/record/3441808#.XaV-megzY2w
https://zenodo.org/record/2530774#.XaWAFegzY2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559822#.YWNShdpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559846#.YWNZlNpBw2w
https://zenodo.org/record/5559850#.YWNaZdpBw2w
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/14/4268
Technological outcomes: The successfully achieved scientific outcomes like novel passivation approaches and/or characterization techniques can be applied to other prominent thin-film materials that have similar characteristics to CIGS, i.e. cadmium telluride (CdTe) and perovskite. Furthermore, the techniques proposed and achieved at the end of this project are scalable due to one of the major focuses of this project, i.e. industrial viability.
Social outcomes: Uniting PV aimed to merge the characterization and production approaches used in the PV market lead, i.e. silicon solar cells, with thin film PV. As a result of this merger, one of the main objectives of Uniting PV was to lead collaborations between Si and thin film PV. Considering the efficiency limit of the single junction PV technologies, the trend for a while is to 'merge' two different technologies to get more efficient solar cells, the so-called tandem PV technology. Uniting PV had anticipated this and showed the competitive Si and TF technologies experts that it is possible to integrate process and characterization techniques into different solar cell architectures, which is leading to more fruitful collaborations for tandem PV applications.
Additionally, also an interdisciplinary link with the field of photo- and/or electrocatalysis has been made. Chalcogenide materials (e.g. CIGS) are very promising for the conversion of CO2 by photo- and/or electrocatalysis as they can enable high activity and selectivity, but also and especially high-value products (i.e. methanol or dimethoxy ethane). Industry releases relatively large amounts of CO2, which by use of such processes could be captured, fed back into the process as a resource, or temporarily stored through so-called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Hence, this field of research is currently attracting a lot of interest