Project description
New materials aim to break efficiency limits in tandem solar panels
Severe weather events make shifting towards renewable energy urgent. While standard silicon solar panels dominate the market, they are nearing their theoretical efficiency limits. To exceed this barrier, scientists stack perovskite cells on top of silicon to create tandem solar cells. However, the critical junction layer interconnecting these cells relies on expensive, scarce indium-based materials, limiting large-scale sustainability. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the INSPIRE-PV project will redesign this interface. Researchers will develop innovative, indium-free junctions using cost-effective carrier-selective materials and apply hydrogen passivation to cure atomic defects. This industrially viable, novel material stack aims to unlock scalable, high-efficiency tandem solar cells, eliminating critical raw material dependencies to support Europe’s Green Deal, net-zero transition and strategic autonomy.
Objective
The world is currently facing the perils of climate change, which manifest in the form of severe weather events across the globe, resulting not only in substantial economic losses but also endangering human life. A long-term solution is to transition to renewables, and solar photovoltaics stand out for its potential to significantly displace conventional fossil fuels. For enabling this transition, the solar cells should deliver higher efficiency in an economically feasible and commercially scalable manner. The current market-dominant silicon solar cells have reached efficiency close to their upper limit of ~27%. A promising route to improve this further is tandem solar cells (TSCs), which integrate two solar cells - a perovskite top cell and a silicon bottom cell, already demonstrating ~34% record efficiency. However, the widespread adoption of TSCs is hindered by the limitations of the interconnecting recombination junction (RJ). This critical layer must exhibit high optical transparency to minimize photon losses, exceptional passivation to suppress carrier recombination, and compatibility with scalable manufacturing processes. The present layers consist of Indium-based transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), which suffer from high material cost and resource scarcity, along with amorphous silicon (a-Si) that has parasitic absorption losses. Project INSPIRE-PV aims to engineer a next-generation RJ offering three key advantages: (1) replacement of indium-based TCOs with cost-effective, scalable alternatives; (2) enhanced transparency through wide-bandgap materials; and (3) superior interface passivation enabled by hydrogen plasma treatment. This novel material stack addresses a critical bottleneck in tandem cell design, unlocking pathways toward economically viable, high-efficiency TSCs. This interdisciplinary effort seeks to establish a new benchmark in TSC architecture, facilitating mass deployment and contributing meaningfully to global decarbonization goals.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology materials engineering amorphous solids amorphous semiconductors
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering manufacturing engineering
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy solar energy photovoltaic
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.