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Crystals
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Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices
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Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices

A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials for Energy Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 9620

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Nicolò Lago

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, 35131 Padua, Italy
Interests: electronic devices physics, characterizations, and modelling; perovskite and polymeric solar cells; thin-film transistors; electrolyte-gated tran-sistors; sensors; neural interfaces; organic semiconductors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Mirko Seri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati, National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISMN), Bologna, Italy
Interests: BHJ organic solar cells; semiconducting polymers/small-molecules; thin-films; solution-processing; device characterization; device upscaling; green electronics; ecodesigned materials/devices
Dr. Andrea Cester

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, 35131 Padua, Italy
Interests: electronic devices physics, characterizations, and modelling; electronic devices reliability; perovskite and polymeric solar cells; thin-film tran-sistors; electrolyte-gated transistors; sensors; neural interfaces; organic semiconductors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last few years, we are witnessing a formidable increase in sensitivity toward sustainable lifestyle choices, with more and more people realizing the importance of preserving Earth’s natural resources.

This wave of change is inducing governments all around the globe to take important actions to contrast environmental and climate changes. An example is the European Green Deal that, alongside with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it includes decarbonisation strategies to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and provide green energy for citizens and industries.

This “Green Revolution” must be coordinated with investments in renewable energy sources to make up for the constantly increasing energy demand where, among the various renewable energy sources that can be exploited, solar energy is undoubtedly the most abundant source of energy at our disposal that can be harvested with minimal environmental impact.

Since the first silicon-based solar cells invented at the Bell Labs in 1954, there have been an exponential boost in the number of publications in the field of solar energy and many different technologies have been developed exploiting various materials and architectures beyond commercial mono- and poly-crystalline silicon panel.

Despite all these achievements, in order to reach the goal of net zero greenhouse gases emission inside a circular economy framework, there are still open challenges that need to be tackled: the development of low-cost, large area, and eco-sustainable technologies; the quest for non-critical raw materials; and the integration of photovoltaic devices for internet-of-things (IoT) applications.

In this context, this Special Issue targets those contributions (both original works and review articles) covering the latest researches in the field of photovoltaic devices and materials for next generation solar cells. We are looking for manuscript exploiting novel materials and architectures for large-scale energy production, as well as for low power IoT devices. Submitted manuscripts should cover one or more of the following subjects:

  • Fabrication and characterization of lead-free perovskite solar cells, polymeric solar cells, and metal-oxide solar cells;
  • Synthesis and processing of photovoltaic materials using innovative low-cost and low environmental impact methods;
  • Characterization and analysis of the physicochemical properties of energy materials (i.e., light absorbing materials, charge transport materials, and charge extraction materials).

Dr. Nicolò Lago
Dr. Mirko Seri
Dr. Andrea Cester
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • solar energy
  • energy materials
  • semiconductors
  • thin films
  • material synthesis and processing
  • charge transport materials
  • charge extraction materials
  • photovoltaic devices
  • organic and polymeric solar cells
  • perovskite solar cells
  • metal-oxides solar cells

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research, Review

2 pages, 180 KiB  
Editorial
Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices
by Nicolò Lago
Crystals 2023, 13(6), 925; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13060925 - 8 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 711
Abstract
Over the last few years, we have witnessed a formidable increase in the public sensitivity toward more sustainable lifestyle choices, with more and more people realizing the importance of preserving the Earth’s natural resources [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices)

Research

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9 pages, 2785 KiB  
Article
Numerical and Experimental Study of the Front Surface Recombination Velocities and Base Widths Effect in Multi-Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell Quantum Efficiency
by Bilel Abdouli, Lotfi Khezami, Ahlem Guesmi, Aymen Amine Assadi and Mohamed Ben Rabha
Crystals 2023, 13(3), 425; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13030425 - 1 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1567
Abstract
Photovoltaic research activities are related to material innovation that can be obtained at a comparatively low cost. Semiconductor p-type multi-crystalline Czochralskyc (CZ)-grown silicon wafers were used in this study. The effects of front surface recombination velocities and base thickness in solar cells’ quantum [...] Read more.
Photovoltaic research activities are related to material innovation that can be obtained at a comparatively low cost. Semiconductor p-type multi-crystalline Czochralskyc (CZ)-grown silicon wafers were used in this study. The effects of front surface recombination velocities and base thickness in solar cells’ quantum efficiency are theoretically calculated. The results denote that both the surface recombination velocities and the base widths significantly impact the quantum efficiency. The results are of universal technical importance in designing solar cells and their surface structures. The main goal of this paper was to confirm the validity of the above theoretical calculations; for this purpose, silicon solar cells with front-thin porous silicon and rear interdigitated contact have been produced. A good agreement was obtained between experimentally obtained solar cells’ quantum efficiency data and the theoretical results. Therefore, the quantum efficiency of the mc-Si solar cells with porous silicon and rear interdigitated contact was enhanced up to 25% at 580–1100 nm wavelength range and up to 50% at short wavelength (400–570 nm), compared to reference mc-Si solar cells. The obtained results indicate that the rear interdigitated contact maximizes the surface area of the metal contact and improves the current collection. At the same time, the porous silicon layer passivates the front surface and reduces recombination losses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices)
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10 pages, 1814 KiB  
Article
Intrinsic Instability of Perovskite Solar Cells: The Role of a Hole-Blocking Layer
by Nicolò Lago, Andrea Polo, Sathy Harshavardhan Reddy, Aldo Di Carlo and Andrea Cester
Crystals 2023, 13(2), 185; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13020185 - 20 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1582
Abstract
Among the emerging photovoltaic technologies, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are the most promising ones with efficiencies close to crystalline silicon. However, stability and reliability issues are still a limit for future applications of this technology. This manuscript investigates the intrinsic instability of PSCs [...] Read more.
Among the emerging photovoltaic technologies, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are the most promising ones with efficiencies close to crystalline silicon. However, stability and reliability issues are still a limit for future applications of this technology. This manuscript investigates the intrinsic instability of PSCs by focusing on the role of the hole-blocking layer (HBL). PSCs were fabricated employing SnOX and bathocuproine (BCP) as an HBL, and their performances were monitored in time. The two architectures show initial similar performances; hence, they are good candidates for comparison, but they feature different instability phenomena. It is shown that cells fabricated with SnOX present larger instabilities mainly ascribable to open-circuit voltage fluctuations (variations in the short-circuit current are negligible). In contrast, the BCP-based cells are more stable with a marginal increase in their power conversion efficiency that follows the increase in the short-circuit current (while the open-circuit voltage does not change). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices)
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10 pages, 2350 KiB  
Article
Charge Carrier Recombination Dynamics in MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 Single Crystals
by Zijie Xiao, Tingting Tao, Jingting Shu, Wei Dang, Shusheng Pan and Wei Zhang
Crystals 2022, 12(10), 1425; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst12101425 - 9 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2019
Abstract
Studying the carrier recombination process in MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 single crystals (SCs) is important for its application in the optoelectronic field. In this work, a series of MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 SCs with varied Br/I compositions have been [...] Read more.
Studying the carrier recombination process in MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 single crystals (SCs) is important for its application in the optoelectronic field. In this work, a series of MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 SCs with varied Br/I compositions have been studied. Steady-state photoluminescence (PL) spectra, time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) spectra and time-resolved microwave photoconductivity (TRMC) were used to understand the radiative and non-radiative recombination processes of MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 SCs. By comparing the dynamics of TRPL and TRMC, we conclude that the dynamics of TRPL is dominated by the electron trapping process, which is in accordance with the fast decay component of TRMC kinetics, whereas the slower decay component in TRMC is dominated by the hole trapping process. Moreover, we find both the electron and hole trapping rates in mixed-halide perovskite MAPb(Br1−yIy)3 (0 < y < 1) SCs are higher than that of mono-halide perovskite MAPbBr3 SCs and MAPbI3 SCs. This suggests mixed-halide crystals could introduce additional electron and hole trapping densities, which could be related to the fluctuation of Br/I compositions in the crystals. This work is helpful for understanding carrier recombination process in mixed-halide perovskite SCs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices)
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Review

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14 pages, 3990 KiB  
Review
Research Progress on Homogeneous Fabrication of Large-Area Perovskite Films by Spray Coating
by Sai Ma, Simone Sansoni, Teresa Gatti, Paolo Fino, Guilin Liu and Francesco Lamberti
Crystals 2023, 13(2), 216; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13020216 - 24 Jan 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2951
Abstract
The bottleneck for large-scale processing within perovskite solar cells (PSCs) development is the stringent need for uniform thin films. On a lab scale, the spin coating methodology with acceptable uncertainty ensures a high level of uniformity with minimal roughness, no voids, and reproducible [...] Read more.
The bottleneck for large-scale processing within perovskite solar cells (PSCs) development is the stringent need for uniform thin films. On a lab scale, the spin coating methodology with acceptable uncertainty ensures a high level of uniformity with minimal roughness, no voids, and reproducible procedures. However, the technique is strongly limited for up-scaling because the uncertainty is out of range from the spin center to the edge, resulting in areas only up to a few cm2. In order to boost the industrialization of PSCs, the spray coating (SC) methodology can represent a good solution for achieving the goal of uniformity (in terms of crystal size, film thickness, and roughness) that, combined to a reduced active materials waste, compatible to roll2roll production line, will pave the way to PSCs mass production. In this critical review, we present the technological features of SC relevant to PSCs development and critically discuss the key points on which to address the focus for achieving optimal and reliable performances in connection with the fundamental higher potential of SC over spin-coating in allowing to control thin film homogeneity. This review can help in the commercialization of perovskite solar cells but also can contribute to the development of scale-up methodologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices)
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