Dashboard

Increasing world needs for electrical power have intensified research into materials suitable for cheap and efficient solar cells. Solution-processed semiconductors offer great benefits in this area, as they can be easily processed into device, allowing cheap production of large scale solar panels. Organic-metal-halide perovskites have recently been employed as the absorber material in thin film solar cells, rapidly reaching certified efficiencies of 20%, making them an exciting new component in low-cost solution-processable photovoltaics. Currently, the research community holds little knowledge on factors that have already been well established for most other photovoltaic materials, such as charge generation, recombination and diffusion, as well as the influence of basic material parameters such as composition, morphology, trap states and doping. During this project we will advance the efficiencies of these materials by gaining an understanding of fundamental photon-to-charge conversion processes using a combination of ultra-fast and quasi-steady state optical techniques, focussing on photoluminescence spectroscopy and high resolution time-dependent photoluminescence measurements. These techniques will be used to investigate factors currently limiting the efficiency of both the established organic-lead-triiodide perovskites, and new materials in the organic-metal-halide perovskite class. This spectroscopic project will be conducted as part of an active collaboration with other team members working on solar cell materials and device fabrication and development.