High-performance all-inorganic perovskite/crystalline silicon tandem solar cells

• Applicant: Wensheng Yan, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 392024936

Securing the energy resources for all people on this planet is one of the biggest global challenges facing humankind in the 21st century. Photovoltaics (PV) can play a major role as part of the future renewables-based energy mix. Over the past decades, crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells have dominated the global PV market with a market share of >90%. Rapid efficiency progress and the merits such as a highly tunable bandgap, simple process, and very low cost potential make the perovskite cells particularly suited for tandem PV technology. Therefore, perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells have become the most promising technology for enhancing the efficiencies of the market-dominating c-Si cells with a minimal increase in cost. Recent researches on the hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells have achieved functional devices and the efficiency is progressing with the result of approximately 25%. Currently, however, the key barrier to further implementation is the low stability of the common organic-inorganic perovskite layers against moisture and heat. Non-optimal light management is also a barrier. Very recently, more recently developed all-inorganic perovskite solar cells based on CsPbX3 (X=Br,I) have demonstrated unprecedented stability against moisture and heat. The efficiency progress for all-inorganic perovskite cells is also rapid and the current highest reported value is ~10%. It is widely believed that there are no fundamental or foreseen obstacles stopping the all-inorganic perovskite solar cells matching the organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells in terms of the efficiency. Therefore, it is expected that all-inorganic perovskite/c-Si tandem cells are a promising pathway to improve the efficiency of c-Si solar cells whilst also affording excellent performance stability against moisture and heat. The present joint Sino-German research project aims to address the key challenges and achieve 1cm2-area prototype devices of high-performance 4-T all-inorganic perovskite/c-Si tandem cells with high stability against moisture and heat without cell encapsulation (> 5000hours), which can demonstrate significant advance towards practical applications.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China
• Partner Organisation: National Natural Science Foundation of China
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Zhong Jin