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Reducing the thickness of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells is a key objective in order to reduce production cost and to improve sustainability. The major challenge for sub-micron Cu(In,Ga)Se2 cells is the recombination at the backside. In standard…
A key challenge with large battery systems is heterogeneous currents and temperatures in modules with parallel-connected cells. Although extreme currents and temperatures are detrimental to the performance and lifetime of battery cells,…
The incoherence of sunlight has long been suspected to have an impact on solar cell energy conversion efficiency, although the extent of this is unclear. Existing computational methods used to optimize solar cell efficiency under incoherent…
Photons do not carry sufficient momentum to induce indirect optical transitions in semiconducting materials such as silicon, necessitating the assistance of lattice phonons to conserve momentum. Compared to direct bandgap semiconductors,…
Solar energy is rapidly becoming a robust renewable energy source to conventional finite resources such as fossil fuels. It is harvested using interconnected photovoltaic panels, typically built with crystalline silicon cells, i.e.…
Beta cells generate electric power as carrier-producing beta irradiation from incorporated radioisotopes bombard a series of p-n-junctions. However, radiation damage to the semiconductors commonly used in solar cells limits beta cells to…
Mobile ions in hybrid perovskite semiconductors introduce a new degree of freedom to electronic devices suggesting applications beyond photovoltaics. An intuitive device model describing the interplay between ionic and electronic charge…
Maximum efficiency of ideal single-junction photovoltaic (PV) cells is limited to 33% (for one sun illumination) by intrinsic losses such as band edge thermalization, radiative recombination, and inability to absorb below-bandgap photons.…
The power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells has recently improved beyond 20%. The active layers of these devices comprise of at least two organic semiconductors, forming a type II heterojunction. Hereby, the device performance is…
Non-radiative recombination processes are the biggest hindrance to approaching the radiative limit of the open-circuit voltage for wide-band gap perovskite solar cells. In addition, to high bulk quality, good interfaces and good energy…
The organic-inorganic hybrid lead trihalide perovskites have been emerging as the most attractive photovoltaic material. As regulated by Shockley-Queisser theory, a formidable materials science challenge for the next level improvement…
The increase of cell efficiency resulting from using a diffraction grating as a back reflector is investigated. An enhancement coefficient is introduced as a figure of merit that accounts for the ability of the rear grating to increase the…
Hot carrier solar cells promise theoretical power conversion efficiencies far beyond the single junction limit. However, practical implementations of hot carrier solar cells have lagged far behind those theoretical predictions. Reciprocity…
Solution-processable interlayers are an important building block for the commercialization of organic electronic devices such as organic solar cells. Here, the potential of cross-linking to provide an insoluble, stable and versatile charge…
The photovoltaic reciprocity theory relates the electroluminescence spectrum of a solar cell under applied bias to the external photovoltaic quantum efficiency of the device as measured at short circuit conditions. Its derivation is based…
We propose a light-trapping structure offering a significant enhancement of photovoltaic absorption in transparent organic solar cells operating at infrared while the visible light transmission keeps sufficiently high. The main mechanism of…
Managing the inherent variability of solar generation is a critical challenge for utility grid operators, particularly as the distribution grid-integrated solar generation is making fast inroads in power systems. This paper proposes to…
In a recent paper, Street et al. [Phys. Rev. B 81, 205307 (2010)] propose first order recombination due to interface states to be the dominant loss mechanism in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells, based on steady-state current--voltage…
Thin-film solar cells reach high efficiencies and have a low carbon footprint in production. Tandem solar cells have the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of this technology, where the bottom-cell is generally composed of a…
Flatbands emerge from a myriad of structures such as Landau levels, Lieb and Kagome lattices, linegraphs, and more recently moire superlattices. They enable unique properties including slow light in photonics, correlated phases in…