Helmholtz Association promotes HZB cooperation with Slovenia on perovskite silicon tandem solar cells
Marko Jošt was a PhD student in the HySPRINT-Lab in Steve Albrecht's group. Now he will continue his research on tandem solar cells at the university of Lubljana. © M. Setzpfandt/ HZB
A HZB team has successfully raised funds from the “Helmholtz European Partnering Program” of the Helmholtz Association to expand cooperation with partners of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The topics of the cooperation are tandem solar cells made of perovskite and silicon and, in particular, their precise characterisation.
Currently, most solar modules consist of silicon, a semiconductor that mainly uses the red parts of the solar spectrum to generate electricity. The combination of silicon with perovskite semiconductors therefore promises great opportunities for even higher efficiencies. Semiconductor materials from this material class convert the energy-rich, blue parts of the spectrum into electricity.
Now the HZB physicist Prof. Dr. Steve Albrecht has raised funds from the Helmholtz Association to investigate such tandem solar cells with partners from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The TAPAS project is funded by the Helmholtz European Partnering programme for the next three years with 250,000 euros per year each. Following an evaluation, the funding period can be extended by two years. The Helmholtz European Partnering programme was set up to strengthen the European research area, in particular cooperation with countries in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe.
The name TAPAS stands for "Tandem Perovskite and Silicon solar cells - Advanced opto-electrical characterization, modeling and stability". Together with opto-electrical modelling, highly efficient and stable next-generation tandem solar cells are to be developed for the energy system of the future.
The Working Group for Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics at the University of Ljubljana (LPVO, headed by Prof. Dr Marko Topič) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have established a very successful cooperation in recent years, which will be further strengthened by this funding. The aim of the cooperation is to analyse the processes that affect the stability of the modules in the field.
- 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.
- Perovskite triple-junction solar cells: Even more efficient with GO/SAM bilayersPerovskite semiconductors efficiently convert sunlight into electrical energy; they are also inexpensive and extremely lightweight. A team at HZB has developed a triple-junction solar cell comprising different perovskite semiconductors, with a novel bilayer of graphene oxide (GO) and a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) as the hole conductor. This bilayer significantly increases both efficiency and long-term stability. The efficiency of the novel perovskite triple-junction solar cell is 27.3% and shows hardly any decline even after more than 770 hours of operation. The study has been published in the renowned journal Joule.
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