All Inorganic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cell Devices

光伏技术对于确保英国未来的能源供应至关重要，探索和开发可显著提高效率的新技术将是光伏技术的重大突破，有利于国家能源战略，并为英国新产业提供领先优势。低成本和高效率的太阳能电池是多方面的挑战，需要多学科的努力，包括基础物理学，材料合成/处理，工艺开发/优化以及完整的器件制造和表征。只有对设备相关的所有方面都有全面的认识，才能提高效率和降低成本。还必须考虑材料成本、可用性和环境影响。目前的太阳能电池技术都依赖于本质上限制器件效率的基本物理原理。为了克服这一理论限制，需要采用新的方法，利用不同的物理机制。拟议的项目旨在汇集先进和新颖的材料，具有独特的性能，可以克服理论限制。具体而言，硅基量子限制和具有高空穴电导率的新型调谐带隙金属氧化物半导体将用于提供第一个全无机体异质结光伏器件，该器件能够利用载流子倍增并提供超出当前技术理论极限的效率潜力。利用低成本，不可降解，无毒，丰富和环保的材料以及低成本和可扩展的制造策略，目的是开辟基于纳米技术的新颖和变革性方法。在项目结束时，这些拟议的设备将代表未来高效低成本光生物学的有力竞争者，其环境足迹有限，它们将为低成本太阳能收集开辟一个新时代。该提案将把化学、纳米技术、材料和等离子体的新元素与设备工程结合起来，并将获得世界领先的材料和光化学集团的专业知识。

Photovoltaic technology is critical to securing the future energy supply of UK and the exploration and development of new technologies that may significantly enhance efficiencies would be a major breakthrough for photovoltaics, for national energy strategy and provide a head-start for new UK industry.The deployment of next generation, low-cost and high-efficiency solar cells is a multifaceted challenge that requires a multidisciplinary effort and includes fundamental physics, material synthesis/processing, process development/optimization and full device fabrication and characterization. Boosting efficiency and lowering costs can only be achieved with a full-span vision of all device-related aspects. Considerations on materials costs, availability and environmental impact are also mandatory. Current solar cell technologies all rely on fundamental physical principles that are intrinsically limiting device efficiency. In order to overcome this theoretical limit new approaches are required that exploit different physical mechanisms.The proposed project aims to bring together advanced and novel materials with unique properties that can overcome theoretical limits. Specifically silicon-based quantum confinement and novel tuned-bandgap metal oxide semiconductors with high hole conductivity will be used to deliver the first all-inorganic bulk-heterojunction photovoltaic device capable of exploiting carrier multiplication and offering the potential of efficiencies beyond the theoretical limit of current technologies. Utilising low cost, non-degradable, non-toxic, abundant and environmentally-friendly materials as well as low cost and scalable fabrication strategies, the aim is to open up novel and transformative approaches based on nanotechnology. The proposed devices will represent at the end of the project a serious contender for future high efficiency low-cost photovoltaics with limited environmental footprint and they will open up a new era for low-cost solar energy harvesting. The proposal will bring novel elements from chemistry, nanotechnology, materials and plasmas together with device engineering, and will access expertise from world-leading groups in materials and photovoltaics.