Chalcogenide-perovskites for infrared photovoltaics

Descripción del proyecto

Los fotones infrarrojos podrían mejorar significativamente el rendimiento de las celdas fotovoltaicas

La tecnología de las celdas fotovoltaicas ha avanzado enormemente desde los años cincuenta del siglo pasado y desde que la primera celda fotovoltaica de silicio fue capaz de suministrar suficiente energía para alimentar un simple aparato doméstico. Sin embargo, aún falta mucho para poder recoger todo el espectro de los fotones energéticos del Sol. El aumento de la eficacia de la conversión de energía tendrá un recorrido limitado si no se absorben más fotones desde el primer momento. En otras palabras, la salida estará limitada por la entrada incluso con las eficiencias de conversión de energía más elevadas. El proyecto IRPV, financiado por las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, está tomando algunas de las arquitecturas de celdas fotovoltaicas más avanzadas del momento —las celdas fotovoltaicas de unión múltiple— y está desarrollando una tecnología que les permita absorber los fotones infrarrojos que actualmente no se aprovechan.

Objetivo

Solar energy reaching Earth is ubiquitous and unlimited. However, current solar technologies in the market converting light directly to electricity theoretically can harvest only 33% of this energy. Stacking several solar cells with appropriate optical properties, power conversion efficiency (PCE) can be almost doubled. Albeit, current multiple junction (MJ) solar cells are very expensive and unaffordable for large scale applications.
Combination of well-established thin film solar technologies is a promising strategy for fabrication of high-efficiency and cost-effective MJ solar cells. Dual junction solar cells combining Si and wide bandgap thin films are extensively studied. Infrared (IR) part of solar spectrum is not utilized by such dual junction. PCE can be boosted up to 49% by adding IR solar cell. However, there are only few materials with suitable bandgap for IR solar cells, and they contain toxic chemical elements and/or are expensive to synthesize.
Evidently, there is an urgent need to explore novel materials for IR solar cells which is the main goal of the current Marie Skłodowska-Curie project. Chalcogenide-perovskites (CP) is an emerging class of materials that has been highly regarded for optoelectronic application. However, little experimental evidence of photovoltaic (PV) properties has been demonstrated. This project aims to unravel the potential of CP materials for IR PV. First bulk material will be synthesized and characterized to filter out CPs with 0.7 eV bandgap. Then, CP thin films will be fabricated and tested to evaluate potential for PV.
The researcher dr. Rokas Kondrotas will be returning after a two-year post-doc in China. He will be contracted with Fiziniu ir Technologijos Mokslu Centras (FTMC) and supervised by prof. Arūnas Krotkus. Through the course of the project, applicant will adopt new competence, research and academic skills, and strengthen his position as the leading scientist in the newly emerging PV group.