NSF/CBET-BSF: Processing of Polar Absorbers to Enable Hot-Carrier All-Oxide Transparent Solar Cells

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Due to an inexhaustible supply of energy from the sun, conversion of sunlight into electricity by photovoltaics (PVs) is a promising long-term sustainable energy technology. In this NSF-Binational Science Foundation (BSF) project, Drexel University, in partnership with Bar-Ilan University in Israel, will conduct a fundamental research study on new materials design and synthesis strategy for producing optically-transparent semiconductors for efficient solar energy conversion. The new materials will be obtained through a combination of computational design of materials and advanced synthesis, processing, and property measurements. Devices will be prepared and evaluated using these materials, which will simultaneously and efficiently absorb ultraviolet and infrared sunlight, but transmit visible light, and convert the absorbed light efficiently into power. The new solar energy absorber paradigm, which relies on inexpensive, earth-abundant, non-toxic and stable materials, has the potential to transform PV solar power conversion capacity using already existing building windows and other building surfaces. The investigations undertaken in this project will advance fundamental knowledge on the photocurrent generation mechanism that promises to dramatically enhance solar power conversion efficiencies of photovoltaic cells based on ferroelectric oxides. This project also serves as ideal training for a cadre of talented young engineers, including those from historically underrepresented groups, to tackle important fundamental materials engineering challenges and participate in outreach activities as part of collaborative, interdisciplinary effort.The novel, highly-efficient hot-carrier mechanism of solar energy conversion is promising for the use of ferroelectric oxide films in single absorber, transparent photovoltaics. This project will result in fundamental knowledge of the relationships between processing and the structural, optical and photo-generated charge transport properties and performance of transparent photovoltaic absorber films. The approach of the project uses a series of tightly coupled experimental and theoretical investigations. This research program combines aspects of advanced materials processing and device fabrication with fundamental materials design and understanding to achieve the unusual combination of infrared and ultraviolet light absorption, visible light transparency and functional ferroelectric properties for enabling novel transparent hot-carrier solar cells with efficiencies possibly beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit. Deposition and post-deposition processing protocols that enable the use of the semiconducting ferroelectric-type films for transparent photovoltaic absorbers will be researched, along with device fabrication, testing and analysis. While computational methods have been used for materials discovery, their use for fundamental studies of processing of cation-doped and oxygen vacancy-rich solid-solution semiconducting ferroelectric oxide perovskites will be one of the first examples for theory-guided processing research. Building on the collaborations between the PI and his Israel-based collaborator, comparison of theory and experiment will provide feedback for the physical vapor deposition-based film synthesis effort and will enhance the accuracy of the first principles density functional theoretical-based computational approach.