thin film – Lightsources.org

Researchers from the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and ALBA Synchrotron have led a collaborative research, together with the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2), the Dept. of Electronics and Biomedical Engineering (University of Barcelona) and CIC nanoGUNE (Donostia), where they have exploited X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the BOREAS beamline of ALBA for unveiling the optical and spin transport properties of transition metal oxides for photovoltaics and spintronics applications.
There is an urgent need of metallic and transparent electrodes for applications in advanced technologies such as flat panel displays or electrodes for photovoltaics, that may substitute the ubiquitous and exceedingly expensive and scarce Indium-Tin oxide (ITO). The AMO₃ perovskites (being A an alkaline earth and M an early 3d transition metal, e.g. SrVO₃) are driving attention because their intrinsic metallic character combines with the strong electron correlation within the narrow 3d band, to produce a material having its plasma frequency down to infrared and thus transparent at visible range.

>Read more on the ALBA website

Image: Illustration of different phenomena occurring at the interface between a ferromagnetic insulator and a heavy metal.

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.

Tag: thin film

X-rays find key insights in metal-oxide thin film interfaces

Perovskites, the rising star for energy harvesting

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.