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The surface states of the active TiO2 layer is crucial while fabricating an efficient solar cell. This work experimentally analyses the effect of exposing TiO2 based electron transport layer (ETL) to the ultraviolet-ozone (UV-O3) and…

In this work, first principle calculations of Cu$_2$ZnSnS$_4$ (CZTS), Cu$_2$ZnGeS$_4$ (CZGS) and Cu$_2$ZnSiS$_4$ (CZSS) are performed to highlight the impact of the cationic substitution on the structural, electronic and optical properties…

The p-type semiconductor Cu3PSe4 has recently been established to have a direct bandgap of 1.4 eV and an optical absorption spectrum similar to GaAs [Applied Physics Letters, 99, 181903 (2011)], suggesting a possible application as a solar…

Two strategies for enhancing photovoltaic (PV) performance in chalcopyrite solar cells were investigated: Cu1-xKxIn1-yGaySe2 absorbers with low K content (K/(K+Cu), or x ~ 0.07) distributed throughout the bulk, and CuIn1-yGaySe2 absorbers…

The structural, electronic, optical and thermodynamic properties of Mo2Ga2C are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The optimized crystal structure is obtained and the…

Thin film solar cells have been attractive for decades in advanced green technology platforms due to its possibilities to be integrated with buildings and on-chip applications. However, the bottleneck issues involved to consider the current…

Technological applications of novel metastable materials are frequently inhibited by abundant defects residing in these materials. Using first-principles methods we investigate the point defect thermodynamics and phase segregation in the…

Power-conversion efficiency is a critical factor for the wider adoption of solar-cell modules. Thin-film solar cells are cheap and easy to manufacture, but their efficiencies are low compared to crystalline-silicon solar cells and need to…

We demonstrate a non-destructive approach to provide structural properties on the grain level for the absorber layer of kesterite solar cells. Kesterite solar cells are notoriously difficult to characterize structurally due to the…

Photogalvanic solar cells, the original dye based solar cell, have yet to fulfill their promise as a low fabrication cost, scalable energy conversion system. The efficient performance of photogalvanic cells relies on high dye solubility and…

Atomically thin layered materials such as graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides exhibit great potential as active materials in optoelectronic devices because of their high carrier-transporting properties and strong light-matter…

Cu2ZnSnS(e)4 (CZTS(e)) solar cells have attracted much attention due to the elemental abundance and the non-toxicity. However, the record efficiency of 12.6% for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) solar cells is much lower than that of Cu(In,Ga)Se2…

The detrimental effect of tail states on the radiative and non-radiative voltage loss has been demonstrated to be a limiting factor for the open circuit voltage in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells. A strategy that has proven effective in reducing…

Resonant modes in metamaterials have been widely utilized to amplify the optical response of 2D materials for practical device applications. However, the high loss at the resonant mode severely hinders metamaterial applications. Here, we…

The limiting factor preventing kesterite (CZTSSe) thin film solar cell performance further improvement is the large open-circuit voltage deficit (Voc,def) issue, which is 0.345V for the current world record device with an efficiency of…

The Shockley-Queisser (SQ) limit provides a convenient metric for predicting light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of a solar cell based on the band gap of the light-absorbing layer. In reality, few materials approach this radiative…

Mossbauer analysis is carried out on CZTS samples, subjected to a low temperature processing at 3000C (S1) and high temperature processing at 5500C under sulfur environment (S2). Loss of Sn is observed in sample S2 due to high temperature…

Understanding mechanisms in DSSCs is fundamental for their improvement; this includes the nanocrystalline semiconducting layer behaviour. Different mesoporous TiO2 layers are fabricated and analyzed for possible use in DSSC solar cells. The…

A coupled optoelectronic model was implemented along with the differential evolution algorithm to assess the efficacy of grading the bandgap of the CZTSSe layer for enhancing the power conversion efficiency of thin-film CZTSSe solar cells.…

The density of states (DOS) is fundamentally important for understanding physical processes in organic disordered semiconductors, yet hard to determine experimentally. We evaluated the DOS by considering recombination via tail states and…