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Two-Dimensional Materials in Solar Cells

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 April 2022) | Viewed by 8213

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Dr. Pescetelli Sara

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Guest Editor

Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Roma Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
Interests: organic and hybrid photovoltaic devices, especially perovskite-based solar cells; dye-sensitized solar cells; small molecule devices and tandem solar cells; interface engineering based on two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and MXenes of perovskite based devices from lab scale to large area modules up to panels

Dr. Antonio Agresti

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Guest Editor

Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Roma Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
Interests: the design, engineering, fabrication and electrical/spectroscopic characterization of hybrid and organic solar cells and large area modules; the use of graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides and new bi-dimensional materials such as MXenes for photovoltaics engineering and in particular for perovskite solar cells, tandem devices, large area modules, and panels
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The abrupt increase of global energy demand is forcing the scientific community to find alternative, cheap, and efficient solutions to exploit renewable sources. In this context, the existing photovoltaic technologies, such as silicon-based, organic, and perovskite solar cells and tandem devices are gaining an increasingly relevant role. Nowadays, the main challenge consists in harvesting the solar energy in an efficient way by exploiting cost effective, scalable, and durable technology. In this context, two dimensional (2D) materials have attracted considerable attention due to their exciting optical and electronic properties. Furthermore, due to their atomically thin dimensionality and high versatility, the 2D materials can be integrated within future‐generation photovoltaic devices, but they also represent a cleaver strategy for interface and work function engineering, promoting the effective optimization of solar cell structures. As a matter of fact, graphene, with its high transparency and conductivity, can be employed as an electrode in solar cells, but its ambipolar electrical transport also makes it suitable as a cell anode and/or cathode. Beyond graphene, a vast library of 2D materials, such as transition‐metal dichalcogenides or transition metal carbides, nitrides, or carbonitrides (MXenes), is currently available. Those materials are commonly used as dopants or inter-layers in complex architectures of ultrathin solar cells. Despite the fact that 2D materials have starting to be included in PV technologies, there is still no adequate synergy between the recent progress of the 2D material scientific community and the PV industry and research.

In this regard, we are pleased, as guest editors, to invite you to submit manuscripts for the Special Issue entitled “Two-Dimensional Materials in Solar Cells” in the form of full research papers, communications, and review articles. We look forward to your contribution to this Special Issue, which will be published in Materials.

Dr. Pescetelli Sara
Dr. Antonio Agresti
Guest Editors

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Keywords

photovoltaics (PV)
solar cells
thin film PV
new generation PV
large area PV modules and panels
long-term stability
efficiency
tandem devices
2D materials
graphene
transition metal dichalcogenides
MXenes
nitrides

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 3034 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ag/MgO Nanoparticles via Gas Aggregation Nanocluster Source for Perovskite Solar Cell Engineering

by Matteo Caleffi, Paolo Mariani, Giovanni Bertoni, Guido Paolicelli, Luca Pasquali, Antonio Agresti, Sara Pescetelli, Aldo Di Carlo, Valentina De Renzi and Sergio D’Addato

Materials 2021, 14(19), 5507; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14195507 - 23 Sep 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2220

Abstract

Nanocluster aggregation sources based on magnetron-sputtering represent precise and versatile means to deposit a controlled quantity of metal nanoparticles at selected interfaces. In this work, we exploit this methodology to produce Ag/MgO nanoparticles (NPs) and deposit them on a glass/FTO/TiO₂ substrate, which constitutes the mesoscopic front electrode of a monolithic perovskite-based solar cell (PSC). Herein, the Ag NP growth through magnetron sputtering and gas aggregation, subsequently covered with MgO ultrathin layers, is fully characterized in terms of structural and morphological properties while thermal stability and endurance against air-induced oxidation are demonstrated in accordance with PSC manufacturing processes. Finally, once the NP coverage is optimized, the Ag/MgO engineered PSCs demonstrate an overall increase of 5% in terms of device power conversion efficiencies (up to 17.8%). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Two-Dimensional Materials in Solar Cells)

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20 pages, 2079 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mixed Cation Halide Perovskite under Environmental and Physical Stress

by Rosanna Larciprete, Antonio Agresti, Sara Pescetelli, Hanna Pazniak, Andrea Liedl, Paolo Lacovig, Daniel Lizzit, Ezequiel Tosi, Silvano Lizzit and Aldo Di Carlo

Materials 2021, 14(14), 3954; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14143954 - 15 Jul 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2890

Abstract

Despite the ideal performance demonstrated by mixed perovskite materials when used as active layers in photovoltaic devices, the factor which still hampers their use in real life remains the poor stability of their physico-chemical and functional properties when submitted to prolonged permanence in atmosphere, exposure to light and/or to moderately high temperature. We used high resolution photoelectron spectroscopy to compare the chemical state of triple cation, double halide Cs

_{x}

(FA

_{0.83}

_{0.17}

)

_{(1 - x)}

Pb(I

_{0.83}

_{0.17}

)

_{3}

perovskite thin films being freshly deposited or kept for one month in the dark or in the light in environmental conditions. Important deviations from the nominal composition were found in the samples aged in the dark, which, however, did not show evident signs of oxidation and basically preserved their own electronic structures. Ageing in the light determined a dramatic material deterioration with heavily perturbed chemical composition also due to reactions of the perovskite components with surface contaminants, promoted by the exposure to visible radiation. We also investigated the implications that 2D MXene flakes, recently identified as effective perovskite additive to improve solar cell efficiency, might have on the labile resilience of the material to external agents. Our results exclude any deleterious MXene influence on the perovskite stability and, actually, might evidence a mild stabilizing effect for the fresh samples, which, if doped, exhibited a lower deviation from the expected stoichiometry with respect to the undoped sample. The evolution of the undoped perovskites under thermal stress was studied by heating the samples in UHV while monitoring in real time, simultaneously, the behaviour of four representative material elements. Moreover, we could reveal the occurrence of fast changes induced in the fresh material by the photon beam as well as the enhanced decomposition triggered by the concurrent X-ray irradiation and thermal heating. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Two-Dimensional Materials in Solar Cells)

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Review

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17 pages, 3527 KiB

Open AccessReview

Interface Engineering for Perovskite Solar Cells Based on 2D-Materials: A Physics Point of View

by Rosaria Verduci, Antonio Agresti, Valentino Romano and Giovanna D’Angelo

Materials 2021, 14(19), 5843; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14195843 - 06 Oct 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2841

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed the advance of metal halide perovskites as a promising low-cost and efficient class of light harvesters used in solar cells (SCs). Remarkably, the efficiency of lab-scale perovskite solar cells (PSCs) reached a power conversion efficiency of 25.5% in just ~10 years of research, rivalling the current record of 26.1% for Si-based PVs. To further boost the performances of PSCs, the use of 2D materials (such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides and transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides) has been proposed, thanks to their remarkable optoelectronic properties (that can be tuned with proper chemical composition engineering) and chemical stability. In particular, 2D materials have been demonstrated as promising candidates for (i) accelerating hot carrier transfer across the interfaces between the perovskite and the charge extraction layers; (ii) improving the crystallization of the perovskite layers (when used as additives in the precursor solution); (iii) favoring electronic bands alignment through tuning of the work function. In this mini-review, we discuss the physical mechanisms underlying the increased efficiency of 2D material-based PSCs, focusing on the three aforementioned effects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Two-Dimensional Materials in Solar Cells)

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