photovoltaic – Lightsources.org

LAAAMP-Funded Team Makes a Journey of Miles and Nanometers

2023/12/052024/01/02

This is a story of miles and nanometers. Celline Awino Omondi and Miller Shatsala traveled from Kakamega, Kenya, to Berkeley, USA, through a grant from Lightsources for Africa, the Americas, Asia, Middle East, and Pacific (LAAAMP), a journey of over 9,400 miles. Their research interests, however, are best described with nanometers—very thin perovskite films to be used for solar energy.

At their home institution, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Omondi is a faculty member and Shatsala is a PhD student in the department of physics. Omondi’s interest in new materials began in graduate school. “I did a master’s in materials nanotechnology, and it was so interesting, I wanted to continue in materials science,” she said. Though her doctoral studies were in Germany, her research inspiration was closer to home. “In Africa, we have abundant solar radiation. So, we are looking for a way to tap into that solar radiation so that we can use it for our daily life.”

Omondi envisions many applications for photovoltaics. With the new materials under development, solar energy could be used in the future for everything from household electricity to vaccine storage in hospitals and irrigation on farms. New materials to harness solar energy would be life changing. “Most parts of Africa aren’t on the grid, and if they have electricity, it’s very expensive,” Omondi explained.

Similarly, Shatsala’s master’s thesis research focused on silicon solar cells. “Then I discovered that there are new materials coming up in solar energy whose efficiency was almost passing silicon, so that’s why I shifted to perovskites,” he said.

To characterize the perovskites they’re studying, the two researchers came to the Advanced Light Source through a LAAAMP Faculty-Student (FAST) Teams grant. The program provides financial support for PhD students and their faculty advisors from Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Pacific to spend two months in residence at a collaborative partner light source. With this training opportunity, scientists like Omondi and Shatsala will be able to take their newfound skills and knowledge back to a region that is still in the planning phases for its own synchrotron facility. One day in the future, the two researchers could be part of operating and using this facility—the African Light Source. “We were privileged to be picked to be among the few people in Africa to come to the ALS,” said Shatsala.

Read more on the ALS website

Image: The researchers at Beamline 7.3.3. Left to right: Yunfei Wang, Aidan Coffey, Miller Shatsala, Celline Omondi, Chenhui Zhu

Extending the longevity of perovskite solar cells for cheaper solar energy

2022/05/252022/05/26

Study reveals the secret to treating the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of alternatives to silicon solar panels for the photovoltaics industry

Diamond’s Nanoprobe beamline I14 and the electron Physical Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC) were used by a multidisciplinary team of researchers to gain new insight into the perovskite materials that hold so much potential in the field of optoelectronics. Focusing on structural changes that can lead to degradation, the Diamond instruments were part of a suite that enabled the group to observe the nanoscale properties of thin films of perovskite materials and how they change over time under solar illumination. The research, recently published in Nature, could significantly accelerate the development of long-lasting, commercially available perovskite photovoltaics.

Perovskite materials offer a cheaper alternative to silicon for producing solar cells and also show great potential for other optoelectronic applications, such as energy efficient LEDs and X-ray detectors.

The metal halide salts are abundant and much cheaper to process than crystalline silicon. They can be prepared in a liquid ink that is simply printed to produce a thin film of the material.

While the overall energy output of perovskite solar cells can often meet or – in the case of multi-layered, so-called ‘tandem’ devices – exceed that achievable with traditional silicon photovoltaics, the limited longevity of the devices is a key barrier to their commercial viability.

A typical silicon solar panel, like those you might see on the roof of a house, typically lasts about 20-25 years without significant performance losses.

Because perovskite devices are much cheaper to produce, they may not need to have as long a lifetime as their silicon counterparts at least to enter some markets – but to fulfil their ultimate potential in realising widespread decarbonisation, cells will need to operate for at least a decade or more. Researchers and manufacturers have yet to develop a device with similar stability to silicon cells.

Now, researchers at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) and Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, together with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan, have discovered that the defects that limit perovskite efficiency are also responsible for structural changes in the material that lead to degradation.

Read more on the Diamond website

Image: A typical silicon solar panel, like those you might see on the roof of a house, typically lasts about 20-25 years without significant performance losses

Astonishing diversity: Semiconductor nanoparticles form numerous structures

2021/08/052021/08/19

X-ray study reveals how lead sulphide particles self-organise in real time

The structure adopted by lead sulphide nanoparticles changes surprisingly often as they assemble to form ordered superlattices. This is revealed by an experimental study at PETRA III. A team led by the DESY scientists Irina Lokteva and Felix Lehmkühler, from the Coherent X-ray Scattering group headed by Gerhard Grübel, has observed the self-organisation of these semiconductor nanoparticles in real time. The results have been published in the journal Chemistry of Materials. The study helps to better understand the self-assembly of nanoparticles, which can lead to significantly different structures.

Among other things, lead sulphide nanoparticles are used in photovoltaic cells, light-emitting diodes and other electronic devices. In the study, the team investigated the way in which the particles self-organise to form a highly ordered film. They did so by placing a drop of liquid (25 millionths of a litre) containing the nanoparticles inside a small cell and allowing the solvent to evaporate slowly over the course of two hours. The scientists then used an X-ray beam at the P10 beamline to observe in real time what structure the particles formed during the assembly.

To their surprise, the structure adopted by the particles changed several times during the process. “First we see the nanoparticles forming a hexagonal symmetry, which leads to a nanoparticle solid having a hexagonal lattice structure,” Lokteva reports. “But then the superlattice suddenly changes, and displays a cubic symmetry. As it continues to dry, the structure makes two more transitions, becoming a superlattice with tetragonal symmetry and finally one with a different cubic symmetry.” This sequence has been never revealed before in such detail.

Read more on the DESY website

Image: The lead sulphide nanoparticles, which are about eight nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) in size, initially arrange themselves into a layer with hexagonal symmetry

Credit: (Credit: University of Hamburg, Stefan Werner)

A properly tailored tail boosts solar-cell efficiency

2021/04/262021/05/06

With the help of structural insights from the Advanced Light Source (ALS), researchers optimized the fit between organic and inorganic ions in a perovskite solar-cell material.

The work increased the material’s power-conversion efficiency and stability and opens up a new avenue for improving the current-carrier dynamics of a promising class of materials.

A photovoltaic rising star

To address the effects of global climate change, it’s essential that we capitalize on energy from the sun. However, although solar energy is freely available, it needs to be converted into usable electricity in a way that’s efficient, cost-effective, and commercially scalable.

Perovskites are high-performance inorganic semiconductors recognized as some of the most promising photovoltaic materials of the future. Perovskite films—thin, lightweight, and flexible—can be produced using low-cost solution-processing techniques, and their power-conversion efficiencies (PCEs) have rapidly risen to the brink of 30% in just 15 years, surpassing conventional silicon panels.

A structure with room to tinker

The most intriguing perovskite materials today are organic–inorganic hybrids. They have the general formula ABX₃, in which the inorganic B and X ions form a framework of octahedral cages, and the organic A ions are located in the spaces between the cages.

Previously, it was thought that perovskite electronic performance mainly depended on the B and X electronic orbitals, and that A merely served a structural function. In this work, researchers showed that A-site organic ions with specially designed characteristics can increase charge-carrier mobility and power conversion efficiency while also improving device stability.

Read more on the ALS website

Image: Left: The basic structure of perovskite, a promising solar-cell material, has three types of sites, A (blue), B (gray), and X (purple). Right: By attaching organic tails to the interstitial “A” sites (and testing different linker lengths), researchers improved the material’s photovoltaic response.

Hybrid photoactive perovskites imaged with atomic resolution for the first-time

2020/10/302020/11/05

A huge step towards better performing solar cells – a collaboration identified information previously invisible using Diamond’s ePSIC microscopes of Oxford University’s Departments of Materials and Physics

A new technique has been developed allowing reliable atomic-resolution images to be taken, for the first time, of hybrid photoactive perovskite thin films.- highly favourable materials for efficient photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications. These images have significant implications for improving the performance of solar cell materials and have unlocked the next level of ability to understand these technologically important materials. The breakthrough was achieved by a joint team from the University of Oxford and Diamond who have just released a new paper published in Science.

Using the ePSIC (the Electron Physical Science Imaging Centre) E02 microscope and the ARM200 microscope in at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford, the team developed a new technique which allowed them to image the hybrid photoactive perovskites thin films with atomic resolution. This gave them unprecedented insights into their atomic makeup and provided them with information that is invisible to every other technique.

Read more on the Diamond website

Image: An example of one of the images obtained using the new protocol, which illustrates several of the phenomena that the team has been able to describe for the first time, including a range of grain boundaries, extended planar defects, stacking faults, and local inclusions of non-perovskite material.

Enhancing solar energy production

2019/07/102019/09/20

Research investigates ways to convert titanium dioxide into a new photoactive material in the visible light range.

The search for clean and renewable energy sources has intensified in recent years due to the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases and the consequent increase in the average temperature of the planet. One such alternative source is the conversion of sunlight into electricity through photovoltaic panels. The efficiency in this conversion depends on the intrinsic properties of the materials used in the manufacturing of the panels, and it increases year by year with the discovery of new and better materials. As such, solar energy is expected to become one of the main sources of electric energy by the middle of this century, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Titanium dioxide ( $T i O_{2}$ ) is an abundant, nontoxic, biologically inert and chemically stable material, known primarily as a white pigment used in paints, cosmetics and even toothpastes. $T i O_{2}$ is also often used in sunscreens since it is especially capable of absorbing radiation in the ultraviolet region. However, this same property severely limits the use of $T i O_{2}$ for solar energy conversion, since the ultraviolet emission comprises only 5 to 8% of the total energy of the solar light.

Can this $T i O_{2}$ property be extended to the visible light region to increase the conversion of sunlight into electricity? To answer this question, Maria Pilar de Lara-Castells et al. [1] conducted an innovative research in which they discuss how a special treatment can change the optical properties of $T i O_{2}$ .

A timely solution for the photosynthetic oxygen evolving clock

2019/01/252019/01/31

XFEL Hub collaboration reveals the intermediates of the photosynthetic water oxidation clock

A large international collaborative effort aided by the XFEL Hub at Diamond Light Source has generated the most detailed time-resolved studies to date of a key protein involved in photosynthesis. The pioneering work, recently published in Nature, shows how photosystem II harnesses light energy to produce oxygen – insights that could direct a next generation of photovoltaic cells.
>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website

Image: this figure is issued from a video you can watch here.

Perovskites, the rising star for energy harvesting

2018/06/052018/06/18

Perovskites are promising candidates for photovoltaic cells, having reached an energy harvesting of more than 20% while it took silicon three decades to reach an equivalent. Scientists from all over the world are exploring these materials at the ESRF.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels exist in our society since several years now. The photovoltaic market is currently dominated by wafer-based photovoltaics or first generation PVs, namely the traditional crystalline silicon cells, which take a 90% of the market share.

Although silicon (Si) is an abundant material and the price of Si-PV has dropped in the past years, their manufacturing require costly facilities. In addition, their fabrication typically takes place in countries that rely on carbon-intensive forms of electricity generation (high carbon footprint).

But there is room for hope. There is a third generation of PV: those based on thin-film cells. These absorb light more efficiently and they currently take 10% of the market share.

Image: The CEA-CNRS team on ID01. From left to right: Peter Reiss, from CEA-Grenoble/INAC, Tobias Schulli from ID01, Tao Zhou from ID01, Asma Aicha Medjahed, Stephanie Pouget (both from CEA-Grenoble/INAC) and David Djurado, from the CNRS.
Credits: C. Argoud.

Stable solvent for solution-based electrical doping…

2018/05/312018/06/07

… of semiconducting polymer films and its application to organic solar cells.

Controlled and stable electrical doping of organic semiconductors is desirable for the realization of efficient organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Thus, progress has been made to understand the fundamental doping mechanisms.1-3 In 2016, Aizawa et al. reported the use of 12-molybdophosphoric acid hydrate (PMA) to induce p-type doping and crosslinking of neat films of poly[N-9’-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4’,7’-di-2-thienyl-2’,1’,3’-benzothiadiazole)](PCDTBT).4 Later on, a more general approach of sequential solution-based doping was presented, by post-process immersion of donor-like polymer films in PMA-nitromethane solutions.5 However, critical to the method is the use of nitromethane, a highly unstable solvent, to dissolve PMA and thus limited the applicability to large-scale fabrication of organic solar cells.

A collaboration between a team of researchers from the Kippelen Research Group at Georgia Tech and the Toney Research Group at SSRL developed a solution-based doping method using the highly stable solvent, acetonitrile. Figure 1a displays the chemicals used in this work. In Figure 1b, the optical properties of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl)(P3HT) films immersed for 30 min in a 0.5 M solution of PMA in acetonitrile (PMA-im-P3HT) were studied by comparing their transmittance spectra against pristine P3HT and P3HT immersed similarly in a 0.5 M solution of PMA in nitromethane. The normalized change of transmittance ΔT T-1 as a function of wavelength (inset of Fig.1b) reveals the same spectral signatures reported for PMA-im-P3HT films when PMA was dissolved in nitromethane. That is, changes in the region where ΔT T-1< 0 correlate with the P3HT polaron bands, and deviations in the region where ΔT T-1> 0 correlate to the bleaching of the main π-π* absorption bands.6 The data suggests electrical p-doping into the depth of the organic film. Figure 1c shows that the performance of PMA-doped OPV devices using PMA in acetonitrile is comparable to that of OPVs made using PMA in nitromethane or MoO3, under simulated AM 1.5G solar illumination. Furthermore, if the light soaking mechanism is used before each measurement, OPVs made using PMA in nitromethane or acetonitrile remain stable for up to 524 h in the air, retaining 80% of their initial power conversion efficiency (PCE).

Figure: (extract) of GIWAXS data as measured on pristine and PMA doped P3HT, when using various solvents to dissolve the PMA. a, Two-dimensional GIWAXS data converted to q-space for pristine P3HT and P3HT immersed in PMA solutions in nitromethane, acetonitrile or ethanol for 60 seconds. b, One-dimensional scattering profiles (out-of-plane and in-plane profiles), obtained from the two-dimensional GIWAXS data.