Spanish version: http://sl.ugr.es/celulas_fotovoltaicas
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A team of researchers from the Universities of Granada, Jaume I and Bar-Ilan has carried out an advanced modeling of the internal mechanisms of perovskite, a material that allows generating solar energy at a low cost, in order to determine the reasons for the changes said material experiences over time and which complicate the application of the device
A team of researchers from the Universities of Granada, Jaume I (Castellón, Spain) and Bar-Ilan (Tel-Aviv, Israel) has carried out an advanced modeling of the internal mechanisms of perovskite, a material that allows generating solar energy at a low cost, in order to determine the reasons for the changes said material experiences over time and which complicate the application of the device.
The results of the study, which were published in the Chem journal belonging to the Cell Group, expand our knowledge about this material, which presents exceptional properties for the development of solar cells that would be more efficient and cost effective than the current ones.
Hybrid perovskite is a versatile chemical structure made of three components that will mark a revolution in the use of new devices using photovoltaic energy, given its characteristics and reduced price. Even so, this material shows «important stability problems, since perovskite is not a rigid material, but it changes in an uncontrolled way -as a consequence of its ionic components-, which makes it difficult to use in photovoltaic cells», the authors of the work say.
The research was led by the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM, Universitat Jaume I, Spain) in close collaboration with the Institute for Nanotechnology & Advanced Materials (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) and the Department of Electronics and Computer Technology at the University of Granada (UGR). Their work has revealed perovskite’s internal mechanisms, fundamental to achieve the necessary absolute stability of solar devices 24 hours a day.
«A good understanding of the mechanism is an essential step in getting real applications. This understanding helps improving cell efficiency and, at the same time, avoids destructive processes that shorten uptime or reduce performance», the researchers say. Current challenges require an interdisciplinary approach, as was successfully demonstrated in this study by combining theoretical physics with material nanoscience.
The joint work of several teams «has made possible to obtain excellent results both in the field of experimental measurements and in the theoretical understanding of interfaces behavior», according to the authors. The study is a key step in the progress for the application of hybrid perovskite, since it puts the effort of future studies in the delicate contacts where the hybrid material meets metal.
In future works on this subject, scientists consider that it will be important to deepen the knowledge of the structure and behavior of the contacts using alternative nanometric resolution techniques. In addition, it will also be necessary to explore the material varieties which provide the best behavior for each application, like producing electricity, or for LED lighting devices and high-efficiency lasers, which are emerging in the last publications.
- In the image, UGR researchers Juan Antonio Jiménez Tejada and Pilar López Varo, from the Department of Electronics and Computer Technology, coauthors of this work
Bibliographic references:
Dynamic phenomena at perovskite/electron-selective contact interface as interpreted from photovoltage decays.
Ronen Gottesman, Pilar Lopez-Varo, Laxman Gouda, Juan A. Jimenez-Tejada, Jiangang Hu, Shay Tirosh, Arie Zaban, and Juan Bisquert.
Chem. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chempr.2016.10.002
Contact:
Juan Antonio Jiménez Tejada
Departamento de Electrónica y Tecnología de Computadores de la UGR
Telephone: (+34) 958 243 386
E-mail: tejada@ugr.es
Pilar López Varo
Departamento de Electrónica y Tecnología de Computadores de la UGR
Telephone: (+34) 958 241 577
E-mail: pilarlopez@ugr.es
