Helmholtz Innovation Labs: HySPRINT at HZB
HZB will be setting up the new Helmholtz HySPRINT Innovation Lab for jointly developing new combinations of materials and processes in energy applications with commercial partners. Silicon and metal-organic perovskite crystals will be the centre point of the Lab’s work. The Helmholtz Association is supporting the project for the next five years with 1.9 million Euros from its Initiative and Networking Fund, with additional contributions from HZB itself as well as from industry.
The Helmholtz Association is supporting a total of seven Helmholtz Innovation Labs in order to strengthen the transfer of research results to the applications domain. The Association is making about twelve million Euros available over the next five years for setting up and operating the Innovation Labs.
The HZB proposal was selected from a field of 27 competing applications. HySPRINT stands for “Hybrid Silicon Perovskite Research, Integration & Novel Technologies”. It will focus on hybrid materials and components based on silicon and perovskite crystals able to be employed for energy conversion in photovoltaics as well as for solar hydrogen production.
“We intend to further develop silicon hybrid technology, liquid-phase crystallisation of silicon, nano-print lithography as well as the implementation of prototypes by means of 3D techniques for microcontacts in cooperation with industrial partners – and demonstrate the potential for industrial-scale production”, says Professor Bernd Rech from the HZB Institute for Silicon Photovoltaics.
The Innovation Lab will be set up as a core lab at HZB and will work closely with the HZB Institute PVcomB. Professor Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Scientific Director of HZB poitbs out: “HySPRINT will establish itself as a creative pillar of Technology Transfer at HZB and within the Helmholtz Association.”
- BESSY II: How intrinsic oxygen shortens the lifespan of solid-state batteriesAlthough solid-state batteries (SSBs) demonstrate high performance and are intrinsically safe, their capacity currently declines rapidly. A team from the TU Wien, Humboldt-University Berlin and HZB has now analysed a TiS₂|Li₃YCl₆ solid-state half-cell in operando at BESSY II using a special sample environment that allows for non-destructive investigation under real operating conditions. Data obtained by combination of soft and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS and HAXPES) revealed a new degradation mechanism that had not previously been identified in solid-state batteries. They have gained some surprising insights, particularly regarding the harmful role played by intrinsic oxygen. This study provides valuable information for improving design and handling of such batteries.
- Spintronics at BESSY II: Real-time analysis of magnetic bilayer systemsSpintronic devices enable data processing with significantly lower energy consumption. They are based on the interaction between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers. Now, a team from Freie Universität Berlin, HZB and Uppsala University has succeeded in tracking, for each layer separately, how the magnetic order changes after a short laser pulse has excited the system. They were also able to identify the main cause of the loss of antiferromagnetic order in the oxide layer: the excitation is transported from the hot electrons in the ferromagnetic metal to the spins in the antiferromagnet.
- Electrocatalysts: New model for charge separation at the solid-liquid interfaceHydrogen is at the heart of the transition to carbon neutrality, as both an energy carrier and a reagent for green chemistry. However, large-scale production of hydrogen via electrolysis, as well as the production of many other chemical products, requires significantly cheaper and more efficient catalysts. A precise understanding of the electrochemical processes that take place at the interface between the solid catalyst and the liquid medium is highly useful for developing better electrocatalysts. In the journal Nature Communications, an European team has now presented a powerful model that determines charge separation at the interface, the formation of the electric double layer and local electric potential variations, and the resulting influence on the catalytic activity.