Emerging Functional Thin Film Materials for Photovoltaic Applications
A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Surface Engineering for Energy Harvesting, Conversion, and Storage".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2023) | Viewed by 210
Special Issue Editors
Interests: thin film photovoltaic technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: solar cells; cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar cells; thin-film deposition and material characterization; thin-film photovoltaic device fabrication and performance assessment; numerical simulation of PV devices
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
You are cordially invited to contribute to this Special Issue of Coatings entitled “Emerging Functional Thin-Film Materials for Photovoltaic Applications”.
In recent years, a plethora of materials in the thin-film format has been explored for photovoltaic applications. Only a very few rose to stardom with a meteoric rise, greatly capturing the attention of the PV research community, while others remained as prospective materials with unfulfilled potential. Moreover, with the aid of first-principle study and machine learning using computational frameworks, the theoretical quest for new materials has significantly increased. Although CdTe- and CIGS-based technologies have been successfully commercialized, fundamental investigations on their material properties, interface engineering and device structure are still being actively pursued. The aim is to address imminent issues, such as reducing the utilization of scarce elements (Te, In) through the concept of isovalent alloying (CdSeTe) and an ultrathin absorber layer, while, at the same time, preserving an optimal conversion efficiency. On the alternative front, for chalcogen-containing compounds, such as CZTS(Se), SbS(Se), CuSbS(Se), FeS, GeSe, SnS, etc., despite the considerable stagnation in their conversion efficiency progression, continuous effort from PV researchers is still evident. The current superstar of the PV arena, perovskite solar cells (PSCs), is also undergoing a revolution of its own. Dogged by performance stability issues due to their intrinsic material properties, PSC research has taken a novel turn towards the development of inorganic perovskite materials with the primary aim of resolving the aforementioned bottleneck.
This Special Issue aims to cover recent trends and the latest research advances in the field of thin-film deposition, characterization and application to thin-film photovoltaic technologies. Researchers worldwide are invited to submit their papers covering the latest advances in emerging photoabsorber materials, heterojunction engineering and novel concepts related to photovoltaic devices based on thin inorganic, organic and hybrid films. This Special Issue also welcomes publications involving numerical modeling using one-dimensional computer software.
In particular, topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Emerging functional thin films for solar cells;
- Ultrathin photoabsorber materials;
- Transparent and conductive thin films;
- n-buffer/p-absorber heterointerface engineering;
- Metal back contact/p-absorber metal–semiconductor interface;
- Organic, inorganic and hybrid perovskite solar cells;
- Numerical simulation of thin film photovoltaic devices.
Dr. Puvaneswaran Chelvanathan
Dr. Kazi Sajedur Rahman
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- thin film
- solar cells
- inorganic
- perovskite
- organic
- TCO
- buffer layer
- HRT layer
- back contact
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