Design of Stable Perovskite Materials for Sustainable Solar Cell Applications
The provision of sustainable low-carbon energy is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. Materials performance lies at the heart of the development of green energy technologies. This project sits in the important area of advanced energy materials for sustainable solar cell applications based on halide perovskites.
With achievable power conversion efficiencies surpassing 40% in multijunction devices, halide perovskites, such as CsPb(I,Br)3 and FAPb(I,Br)3 (where FA = formamidinium), have exceptional promise towards enabling terawatt-scale deployment of photovoltaics. However, the instability of perovskite solar cells under operational conditions remains a critical obstacle to commercialisation. The research programme aims to develop new chemical routes to modulate lattice properties of perovskite materials for next-generation tandem solar cells using a powerful experimental-modelling approach, spanning synthesis, spectroscopy, diffraction, DFT and machine learning.
One potential cause of instability is halide ion migration, which is exacerbated in materials with high halide defect densities. This project proposes two alternative approaches to improve stability: (i) templating the growth of the perovskite thin-film such that compressive strain is induced, hence controlling defect densities through altering structure, and (ii) introducing the use of cationic additives. In strong synergy with the experimental work, this project will also use cutting-edge modelling and machine learning techniques to gain atomic-level insights into the perovskite materials.
Main contact for enquiries: Prof Nakita K. Noel (nakita.noel@physics.ox.ac.uk)
This project is an IMAT CDT project (number 33) with CDT funding and enquires should be addressed to the IMAT CDT Programme Manager. However you can also select this project if applying for a DPhil in Materials.
