Solution-thermal processing of nanostructured kesterite absorber materials for sustainable solar cell manufacturing

在过去的5-10年里，在光伏（PV）研究、技术开发和商业太阳能转换装置方面出现了前所未有的增长。这是因为人们认识到，只有收集可再生能源才能为全球气候变化和人类经济发展挑战提供可持续的解决方案。然而，这种增长是不可持续的，除非光伏发电的成本与传统发电相比具有竞争力。但是，除了具有成本竞争力之外，光伏技术要想被广泛采用，必须依赖于地球上丰富的无毒材料，易于扩展，以及制造太阳能电池模块的绿色工艺。在各种新兴光伏技术中，在满足低成本、易制造、高效率、稳定性和建筑材料丰富等关键要求方面，真正具有变革性的是基于溶液加工和烧结无机半导体纳米晶体的薄膜太阳能电池。在这项研究中，我们的目标确实是与几个工业合作伙伴合作，开发这种新型的纳米晶体薄膜结构，利用极有前途的、很大程度上尚未开发的kesterite半导体材料家族，不仅由丰富的元素（Cu-Zn-Sn-S-Se）组成，而且具有接近理想的光收集能力。控制溶液合成，沉积，烧结和集成纳米级kesterite晶体或薄膜电池层具有高功率转换效率是我们努力的核心。该研究计划响应了加拿大发展太阳能光伏材料和组件先进制造能力的战略需求，以满足不断增长的可再生能源市场，确保我们的经济繁荣和可持续发展。

Over the last 5-10 years there has been an unprecedented growth in terms of photovoltaic (PV) research, technology development and commercial solar energy conversion installations. This is driven by the realization that only the harvesting of renewable energy sources can provide sustainable solutions to our global climate change and human economic development challenges. This type of growth however is not sustainable unless PV-generated electricity becomes cost-competitive with conventional power generation. But in addition to being cost-competitive, photovoltaic technology, in order to become widely adopted must rely on earth-abundant non-toxic materials and easily scalable as well as green processes for the fabrication of solar cell modules. Among the various emerging PV technologies, one that can prove truly transformational in meeting the key requirements of low cost and ease of manufacture, high efficiency, stability, and abundance of construction materials, is thin-film solar cells based on solution-processed and sintered inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals. It is indeed our goal in this research in collaboration with several industrial partners to develop such novel nanocrystal thin-film structures by exploiting among other things the highly promising and largely unexplored kesterite semiconductor material family that not only is made of abundant elements (Cu-Zn-Sn-S-Se) but has near-ideal light harvesting capacity. Controlled solution synthesis, deposition, sintering and integration of nanoscale kesterite crystals or layers in thin-film cells with high power conversion efficiencies is in the core of our efforts. The proposed research responds to Canada's strategic need of developing advanced manufacturing capability for solar photovoltaic materials and components to meet the ever-growing renewable energy market ensuring our economic prosperity and sustainability.