EPSRC-FNR Collaborative Proposal: Radiative Efficiency in Advanced Sulfide Chalcopyrites for Solar Cells (REACh)

EPSRC-FNR 合作提案：太阳能电池用先进硫化黄铜矿的辐射效率 (REACh)

• 批准号: EP/V029231/1
• 负责人: Rachel Oliver
• 金额: $ 34.22万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FV029231%2F1
• 关键词: EPSRC; FNR; Collaborative; Proposal; Radiative

The renewable and carbon free energy system of the future will rely heavily on electricity generated by solar cells. Solar modules have decreased in price so much in the last few years, that now the cost related to the rest of the system has becomes the main expense. These cost are related to the area of the solar cell. Therefore it remains essential to increase the efficiency of solar cells, because then we need less area to produce the same amount of electricity. Conventional solar cells have been refined over several decades and their efficiencies are now approaching theoretical limits. A new way forward is provided by tandem solar cells, where we stack two different solar cells on top of each other, so that each can make better use of the solar spectrum and the efficiency becomes higher. We are working on a new material, sulfide chalcopyrite, which can be used in a thin film (using only small amounts of raw materials), is stable and has already shown promising efficiencies. We want to use this material as the top cell, combining it with well-known solar cell materials like silicon to produce a tandem cell. These thin films are not single crystals but consist of tiny crystals - on the micrometre scale - known as "grains", which are butt up against one another at "grain boundaries". These grain boundaries can be problematic because they differ from the perfect crystal, and are hence places where we can lose the electrons generated by the incoming sunlight at a rapid rate. Also, grain boundaries can block the current moving through the solar cell. Usually, there are many different grain boundaries in a thin film, some are detrimental for the solar cell and some are benign. In this project we want to understand the role of grain boundaries in sulfide chalcopyrite solar cells. We will study luminescence, which is the light that is emitted by a solar cell material when it is excited by a laser or an electron beam, thereby generating electrons. We use this light to check the quality of the thin films. A good solar cell material will also emit a lot of luminescence, because the electrons that lead to light emission are also those that would carry the current in the solar cell - and if they are able to emit light they are not lost at defects like grain boundaries. For the best films we will use an electron microscope, which allows us to study the luminescence with a very high spatial resolution. Thus, in the electron microscope, we can examine each individual grain boundary and see how much it affects the luminescence. We can then check with the electron microscope what is special about those grain boundaries that do not lead to loss of electrons. This information will help us adapt the growth process of our thin films to make them into better solar cells, by avoiding growth of the more damaging types of grain boundary.

未来的可再生能源和碳自由能系统将在很大程度上取决于太阳能电池产生的电力。在过去的几年中，太阳能模块的价格大大降低，以至于与系统其余部分相关的成本已成为主要费用。这些成本与太阳能电池的面积有关。因此，提高太阳能电池的效率仍然至关重要，因为这样我们需要更少的面积才能产生相同的电力。传统的太阳能电池已在几十年中进行了完善，并且它们的效率现在正在接近理论上的限制。串联太阳能电池提供了一种新的前进道路，在该电池中，我们将两个不同的太阳能电池彼此堆叠在一起，因此每个太阳能电池都可以更好地利用太阳能光谱，并且效率变得更高。我们正在研究一种新材料，可用于薄膜中（仅使用少量的原材料）中的硫化物黄铜矿，并且已经显示出有希望的效率。我们想将此材料用作顶部细胞，将其与硅（如硅）等著名的太阳能电池材料相结合，以产生串联电池。这些薄膜不是单晶体，而是由微小晶体组成的 - 在微米刻度上 - 称为“晶粒”，它们在“晶界”处相互对抗。这些晶界可能是有问题的，因为它们与完美的晶体有所不同，因此，我们可以以快速的速度失去通过传入的阳光产生的电子。同样，晶界可以阻止电流穿过太阳能电池。通常，薄膜中有许多不同的晶界，有些对太阳能电池有害，有些是良性的。在这个项目中，我们想了解晶界在硫化物黄铜矿太阳能电池中的作用。我们将研究发光，这是太阳能电池材料被激光或电子束激发时发出的光，从而产生电子。我们使用此灯来检查薄膜的质量。良好的太阳能电池材料也会发出大量发光，因为导致发射光的电子也是那些会在太阳能电池中携带电流的电子 - 如果它们能够发出光线，则不会在诸如晶粒边界之类的缺陷下丢失。对于最佳膜，我们将使用电子显微镜，这使我们能够以非常高的空间分辨率研究发光。因此，在电子显微镜中，我们可以检查每个单独的晶界，并了解其影响发光的程度。然后，我们可以使用电子显微镜检查那些不会导致电子损失的晶界有什么特殊之处。这些信息将帮助我们调整薄膜的生长过程，从而避免增长更具破坏性的晶粒边界，使其成为更好的太阳能电池。

项目成果

Composition variations in Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 solar cells: Not a gradient, but an interlaced network of two phases

Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 太阳能电池的成分变化：不是梯度，而是两相的交错网络

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0165546
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: APL Materials
• 影响因子: 6.1
• 作者: Prot A

Role of nanoscale compositional inhomogeneities in limiting the open circuit voltage in Cu(In,Ga)S2 solar cells

纳米级成分不均匀性在限制 Cu(In,Ga)S2 太阳能电池开路电压中的作用

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0145450
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: APL Energy
• 作者: Peedle S