Oxide interfaces in PV material systems

Research question

Photovoltaics (PV) are key components in future energy systems. The development of oxide materials and their interfaces is of importance for both current and future PV designs due to their combination of material stability and electronic properties. This project targets new PV systems based on oxide materials and it includes bulk and interfacial studies of well-defined single crystal materials as well as their analogs used in applications. The project will also develop means for investigating such systems at an atomic level during operation and contain development of advanced X-ray based spectroscopy analysis.

Sustainability aspects

The proposal aims at developing PV materials, i.e. new green technologies for harvesting sunlight and converting it to electricity, and is therefore an important part of the electrification development that we witness today. The proposal builds on recent development using lead-based halide perovskite materials (HaP) and target new class of PV technologies. Successfully replacing the lead-based HaP with oxide materials proposed here has the potential for systems that are based on earth-abundant, stable and non-water-soluble, affordable, efficient as well as non-toxic materials. The project also includes developing transparent charge selective oxide layers. In this context an important aspect of the project is to improve long-term stability and to reduce light induced determinantal effects in the solar cells. Long term stability generally improves sustainability aspects of the optoelectronic applications.