Perovskite Solar - Page 41

TCI has launched a range of molecular dopants that can significantly increase the charge carrier density and modify the energy levels in organic electronics devices. Molecular dopants offer a versatile platform to tune the optoelectrical and electrical properties of organic semiconductors to application-specific demands, allowing advantages like increasing the electrical conductivity and mobility by orders of magnitude and improving contact properties in various electronic and optoelectronic devices.

TCI's p-type and n-type dopants can be applied to various organic electronics devices, such as: carrier transport layers of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaics (OPVs), perovskite solar cells (PSCs), and perovskite quantum dot LEDs, as well as active layers of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), OPVs, and thermoelectric devices in the field of organic electronics research.

LONGi announced new conversion efficiency of 33.5% for silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells based on commercial CZ silicon wafers, as was revealed at the Intersolar Europe 2023 exhibition. Earlier this month, LONGi announced its “STAR Innovative Ecological Cooperation Platform” and its newly achieved efficiency of 31.8% for perovskite/crystalline silicon tandem solar cells based on commercial CZ silicon wafers.

“Improving cell conversion efficiency and reducing the cost of electricity remain the perpetual theme driving the development of the photovoltaic industry.” Said Li Zhenguo, President of LONGi.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) has issued a notice of intent (NOI) to release a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) of up to $36 million for research, development, and demonstration projects on two major thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technologies: metal halide perovskites and cadmium telluride (CdTe).  

The DOE stated that advancing perovskite and CdTe technologies will help scale domestic solar manufacturing capacity, strengthen the solar supply chain, and speed solar deployment.

It was reported that U.S-based CubicPV secured US$103 million in equity financing. While it is meant to support its plans to develop a US silicon wafer production base, CubicPV also said that this capital will support its research into perovskite-silicon tandem technology. 

“Today’s announcement underscores the considerable progress we’ve made, the depth of our engineering competence and the strength of our technologies to deliver a more powerful solar future,” said Frank van Mierlo, CEO of CubicPV. “We thank SCG Cleanergy for their confidence in our manufacturing goals and product roadmap.”

Researchers China's Nanjing University, University of Science and technology of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have fabricated an all-perovskite tandem solar cell that is said to show lower interfacial non-radiative recombination and improved charge extraction.

All-perovskite tandem cells could have efficiencies similar to those of tandem perovskite-silicon devices, but with better flexibility, lighter weight, and a lower environmental impact than technologies relying on silicon wafers. The research team explained that their all-perovskite tandem solar cells can be used in power station power generation, rooftop photovoltaic, water catalytic decomposition, carbon dioxide catalytic decomposition, and space applications due to their high open circuit voltage and high efficiency.

India-based P3C Technology and Solutions has announced a fund raise of $250,000 with a further commitment of $3 million based on successful trails. The funds will be used to demonstrate the flexible perovskite solar cells to various government and private bodies like Indian Railway and automobile manufacturers. 

According to P3C, the investment comes from Oberoi Thermit Private Limited, a company with an impressive history of introducing new and innovative products and services which are highly beneficial for Railways. The organization is always looking to introduce new and improved technologies in India which can benefit the country. They are responsible for the introduction of some of the most safety critical technologies in Indian Railways like 3D Scanning of Bridge bed, Bridge Health Monitoring, Vehicular Ultrasonic Testing of rails, Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing of welds amongst other things. 

Researchers from the CEA at INES, ENEL Green Power and its subsidiary 3SUN in Catania, are developing tandem perovskite technology on silicon with two terminals to achieve the highest yields that can be industrialized as quickly as possible. They have announced a new record for a PIN architecture cell with a conversion efficiency of 27.1% on 9 cm² with shading correction.

The CEA and 3SUN had previously reported results of 26.5%, for the same tandem cell of PIN architecture on 9cm² and with shading correction. The device with an active area of ​​9 cm² has a Voc greater than 1900 mV. 

Researchers from Purdue University, University of California and the University of Kentucky have constructed a new perovskite interlayer that reportedly exhibits both superior thermal and moisture stability in ambient conditions.

“Enhancing the stability and lifetime of perovskite devices is necessary in order to realize the goal of commercialization for perovskite photovoltaics,” said Jiaonan Sun. “Today, the stability of commonly used hole transporting layers (HTL) is still a bottleneck for achieving the required lifetime". Poly(triaryl amine) (PTAA) is a promising polymeric hole transporting material used in PSC applications, however, it’s hydrophobicity causes problematic interfacial contact with perovskite, limiting the device’s performance. Led by Dr. Letian Dou, the researchers successfully constructed a uniform two-dimensional (2D) perovskite interlayer with conjugated ligands, between three-dimensional (3D) perovskites and PTAA to improve the power conversion efficiency and the interfacial adhesion of the devices. These increased-ion migration, energy barrier conformal, 2D coated unencapsulated devices with new ligands provide greater thermal and moisture stability in different environments.

Researchers from CNR-IMM,CNR-IPCB, CNR-NANOTEC, Università Degli Studi di Messina and the University of Basel have shown that lead leakage can be prevented by applying a transparent titanium dioxide (TiO₂) sponge in a semitransparent solar cell. The device has demonstrated comparable efficiency to semi-transparent perovskite devices and has an average visible transmittance (AVT) of 31.4%.

The team designed the solar cell for applications such as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and agrivoltaics, in which the potential lead leakage can be seen as a serious public environmental and health risk source. 

Researchers from Nanjing Tech University, Wuhan University of Technology and National University of Singapore set out to address two major issues that should be resolved in order to promote perovskite solar cells (PSCs): disorder crystallization of perovskite and unbalanced interface charge extraction, which limit further improvements in device efficiency. 

The team used a thermally polymerized additive N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP) as a polymer template in the perovskite film, followed by a conventional HTL/Chlorobenzene (CB) solution spin-coating process to remove the residual miscellaneous phases and open the grain boundaries to form monolithic perovskite grains, thereby suppressing the defect-related non-radiative recombination. Furthermore, this process results in the formation of a novel “Mortise-Tenon” (M-T) structure for perovskite/HTL composite film, which provides a larger contact area between perovskite and HTL, thereby facilitating hole extraction to achieve balanced charge management.