Steve Albrecht is Junior Professor at the Technical University of Berlin
Steve Albrecht is heading the junior investigator group "Perovskit Tandem Solar Cells" at the HZB. © A. Kubatzki/HZB
The Technische Universität Berlin (TU) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) have appointed Prof. Dr. Steve Albrecht to the joint junior professorship "perovskite solar cells" as of December 15, 2018. Since 2016, Albrecht has headed the junior investigator group "Perovskit Tandem Solar Cells" at the HZB, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
With his team of 11, Albrecht researches and develops tandem solar cells that combine the advantages of silicon and perovskite solar cells. If both materials are combined to tandem solar cells, a larger part of the light spectrum can be converted. This increases efficiency. The junior research group recently succeeded in increasing the efficiency of perovskite silicon tandem solar cells to 25.5 percent.
Steve Albrecht will also take on teaching responsibilities at the TU Berlin as part of his junior professorship, including supervising a perovskite internship for students at the HZB.
Albrecht studied and completed his PhD in physics at the University of Potsdam. For his dissertation on organic solar cells he was awarded the Carl Ramsauer Prize of the German Physical Society and the Young Investigators Prize of the Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdam.
At the end of 2014, Albrecht joined the HZB as a postdoctoral researcher and established the research field perovskite solar cells at the center. In 2017, together with Eva Unger, he was in charge of setting up the infrastructure for the HySPRINT Perwoskit Laboratory at the HZB. Today, 40 users work here, producing and characterizing perovskite layers for solar cells using various techniques and methods.
- Lithium-sulphur batteries with lean electrolyte: problem areas clarifiedUsing a non-destructive method, a team at HZB investigated practical lithium-sulphur pouch cells with lean electrolyte for the first time. With operando neutron tomography, they could visualise in real-time how the liquid electrolyte distributes and wets the electrodes across multilayers during charging and discharging. These findings offer valuable insights into the cell failure mechanisms and are helpful to design compact Li-S batteries with a high energy density in formats relevant to industrial applications.
- Self assembling monolayer can improve lead-free perovskite solar cells tooTin perovskite solar cells are not only non-toxic, but also potentially more stable than lead-containing perovskite solar cells. However, they are also significantly less efficient. Now, an international team has succeeded in reducing losses in the lower contact layer of tin perovskite solar cells: The scienstists identified chemical compounds that self-assemble into a molecular layer that fits very well with the lattice structure of tin perovskites. On this monolayer, tin perovskite with excellent optoelectronic quality can be grown, which increases the performance of the solar cell.
- Berlin Science Award goes to Philipp AdelhelmBattery researcher Prof. Dr. Philipp Adelhelm has been awarded the 2024 Berlin Science Award. He is a professor at the Institute of Chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin (HU) and heads a joint research group at HU and the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB). The materials scientist and electrochemist is investigating sustainable batteries, which play a key role in the success of the energy transition. He is one of the leading international experts in the field of sodium-ion batteries.