Poster award to Markus Kubin
Markus Kubin in front of his poster. © HZB
At the International Conference on X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure Markus Kubin has been selected to receive one out of five poster awards. More than 300 posters have been presented at the poster session.
Markus Kubin is a PhD student at HZB-Institute for Methods and Instrumentation on Synchrotron Radiation Research. He presented results with femtosecond x-ray pulses concerning reactions in the oxygen evolving complex in the protein Photosystem II. This system plays a central role in natural photosynthesis in plants, algae and cyano bacteria.
The XAFS16 was held from 23. – 28. August in Karlsruhe.
- New contact material boosts the efficiency of perovskite solar cellsA newly developed material for the electron contact improves the efficiency of single perovskite solar cells and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The new material is based on a carborane molecule. It offers several advantages over the standard material C60, as shown by the study led by Steve Albrecht’s team. The new material has since been patented and is already commercially available.
- BESSY II: New sample environment allows glimpse into thermocatalytic processesA novel measurement cell allows, for the first time, soft and hard X-ray investigations under high pressures of up to 20 bar and temperatures of up to 400°C. This provides new insights into thermocatalytic processes, such as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis for producing synthetic fuels. The development of the measurement cell is considered a significant achievement within the Care-O-Sene project.
- Precision interface chemistry pushes perovskite solar cells beyond 26% efficiencyAn international research collaboration has developed a new molecular strategy for controlling one of the most critical interfaces in perovskite solar cells. The resulting solar cells reached a power conversion efficiency of 26.19% in the n i p architecture, together with strong operational stability under prolonged illumination and elevated temperature. The results have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.