Sustainable high efficiency multi-junction nanowire solar cells

Research question

This project’s focus is to further develop and improve the synthesis, processing, and characterization of nanowire-based tandem solar cells. Triple bandgap wires have recently been demonstrated and now the challenge is to realize functioning solar cells that cover square centimeter large areas and have high efficiency. The imminent research tasks involve structure development for current matching in the solar cells based on several junctions in series.  Processing development will lead to electrically contacted nanowire embedded polymer films for ultra-flexible nanowire photovoltaics and substrate re-use, which significantly reduces costs.

The methods include metal-organic gas phase epitaxy, electron microscopy, electro-optical characterization, lithography, atomic layer deposition, and other cleanroom methods for fabrication and characterization.

Sustainability aspects 

The project aims to contribute to harvesting the most plentiful renewable energy source: the sun, by use of nanowires. The project is strongly related to the sustainable development goal nr 7 “affordable and clean energy”. Based on geometrically enhanced light interaction in nanowires, we aim for high efficiency solar cells using only about one gram material per square meter, about 95 % less than in current record-performance planar solar cells, and at reduced fabrication cost for large area implementation.