Printing solar cells for future technologies

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BackgroundThe Application Targeted and Integrated Photovoltaics (ATIP) project is a £6M Programme Grant led by SPECIFIC and Swansea University, in close collaboration with Imperial College London and Oxford University and supported by 12 key industrial partners. The main objective of the overall project, funded by EPSRC, is to drive the uptake of next generation organic photovoltaics and perovskite photovoltaics (PV) to support future technologies and this EngD project relates to the scale-up of printed photovoltaics from laboratory to factory as part of the SPECIFIC PV research team led by Professor Trystan Watson. The PV scale-up and stability research activity is currently carried out at Swansea University and is housed in purpose-built facilities which include a new stability testing and cleanroom printing facility. Printing capabilities include screen, inkjet, slot-die, blade, gravure, and flexography. The photovoltaic characterisation laboratory at SPECIFIC is setup to rapidly progress the prototyping of thin film PV materials on glass or flexible metal and plastic surfaces. Project AimsThe research engineer will work within the larger project team to transfer small area laboratory developed solar cells (perovskite and organic photovoltaics) to large-area industrialised processes; working with collaborators at Imperial College London and Oxford University to ensure targeted functionality and processability. This will involve developing scaling strategies for depositing and drying solution-based perovskite and organic solar cell materials using methods that meet the programme's design requirements and enabling integration; particularly focusing on reducing the efficiency gap between small and large area cells.Day to day activities will entail the fabrication and characterisation of solar cells using both conventional laboratory methods (spin-coating) as well as more industrially relevant methods (slot-die, roll to roll, screen printing). There will be opportunity to develop skills in printing, coating and lifetime testing of functional materials and the development of enabling technologies, with provision to specialise in at least one advanced materials characterisation technique (SEM, N2 adsorption, XRD, etc).