• Title/Summary/Keyword: Photovoltaics

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Characterization of carrier transport and trapping in semiconductor films during plasma processing

  • Nunomura, Shota;Sakata, Isao;Matsubara, Koji
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2016.02a
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    • pp.391-391
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    • 2016
  • The carrier transport is a key factor that determines the device performances of semiconductor devices such as solar cells and transistors [1]. Particularly, devices composed of in amorphous semiconductors, the transport is often restricted by carrier trapping, associated with various defects. So far, the trapping has been studied for as-grown films at room temperature; however it has not been studied during growth under plasma processing. Here, we demonstrate the detection of trapped carriers in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films during plasma processing, and discuss the carrier trapping and defect kinetics. Using an optically pump-probe technique, we detected the trapped carriers (electrons) in an a-Si:H films during growth by a hydrogen diluted silane discharge [2]. A device-grade intrinsic a-Si:H film growing on a glass substrate was illuminated with pump and probe light. The pump induced the photocurrent, whereas the pulsed probe induced an increment in the photocurrent. The photocurrent and its increment were separately measured using a lock-in technique. Because the increment in the photocurrent originates from emission of trapped carriers, and therefore the trapped carrier density was determined from this increment under the assumption of carrier generation and recombination dynamics [2]. We found that the trapped carrier density in device grade intrinsic a-Si:H was the order of 1e17 to 1e18 cm-3. It was highly dependent on the growth conditions, particularly on the growth temperature. At 473K, the trapped carrier density was minimized. Interestingly, the detected trapped carriers were homogeneously distributed in the direction of film growth, and they were decreased once the film growth was terminated by turning off the discharge.

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Synthesis and Design of Electroactive Polymers for Improving Efficiency and Thermal Stability in Organic Photovoltaics

  • Kim, Beom-Jun
    • Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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    • 2011.05a
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    • pp.11.2-11.2
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    • 2011
  • Polymer based organic photovoltaics have attracted a great deal of attention due to the potential cost-effectiveness of light-weight and flexible solar cells. However, most BHJ polymer solar cells are not thermally stable as subsequent exposure to heat drives further development of the morphology towards a state of macrophase separation in the micrometer scale. Here we would like to show three different approaches for developing new electroactive polymers to improve the thermal stability of the BHJ solar cells, which is a critical problem for the commercialization of these solar cells. For one of the examples, we report a new series of functionalized polythiophene (PT-x) copolymers for use in solution processed organic photovoltaics (OPVs). PT-x copolymers were synthesized from two different monomers, where the ratio of the monomers was carefully controlled to achieve a UV photo-crosslinkable layer while leaving the ${\pi}-{\pi}$ stacking feature of conjugated polymers unchanged. The crosslinking stabilizes PT-x/PCBM blend morphology preventing the macro phase separation between two components, which lead to OPVs with remarkably enhanced thermal stability. The drastic improvement in thermal stabilities is further characterized by microscopy as well as grazing incidence X-ray scattering (GIXS). In the second part of talk, we will discuss the use of block copolymers as active materials for WOLEDs in which phosphorescent emitter isolation can be achieved. We have exploited the use of triarylamine (TPA) oxadiazole (OXA) diblock copolymers (TPA-b-OXA), which have been used as host materials due to their high triplet energy and charge-transport properties enabling a balance of holes and electrons. Organization of phosphorescent domains in TPA-b-OXA block copolymers is demonstrated to yield dual emission for white electroluminescence. Our approach minimizes energy transfer between two colored species by site isolation through morphology control, allowing higher loading concentration of red emitters with improved device performance. Furthermore, by varying the molecular weight of TPA-b-OXA and the ratio of blue to red emitters, we have investigated the effect of domain spacing on the electroluminescence spectrum and device performance.

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Performance Characteristics of Polymer Photovoltaics using Dimethyl Sulphoxide incorporated PEDOT:PSS Buffer Layer

  • Park, Seong-Hui;Lee, Hye-Hyeon;Jo, Yeong-Ran;Hwang, Jong-Won;Gang, Yong-Su;Choe, Yeong-Seon
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2010.08a
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    • pp.238-239
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    • 2010
  • Dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) is one of the widely-used secondary dopants in order to enhance the conductivity of poly(3, 4-ethylenedioxy-thiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) film. In this work, we investigated the effect of DMSO doping in to PEDOT:PSS on the electrical performance of the bulk heterojunction photovoltaics consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2, 5-diyl) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester. Correlation between the power conversion efficiency and the mechanism of improving conductivity, surface morphology, and contact properties was examined. The PEDOT:PSS films, which contain different concentration of DMSO, have been prepared and annealed at different annealing temperatures. The mixture of DMSO and PEDOT:PSS was prepared with a ratio of 1%, 5%, 15%, 25%, 35%, 45%, 55% by volume of DMSO, respectively. The DMSO-contained PEDOT:PSS solutions were stirred for 1hr at $40^{\circ}C$, then spin-coated on the ultra-sonicated glass. The spin-coated films were baked for 10min at $65^{\circ}C$, $85^{\circ}C$, and $120^{\circ}C$ in air. In order to investigate the electrical performance, P3HT:PCBM blended film was deposited with thickness of 150nm on DMSO-doped PEDOT:PSS layer. After depositing 100nm of Al, the device was post-annealed for 30min at $120^{\circ}C$ in vacuum. The fabricated cells, in this study, have been characterized by using several techniques such as UV-Visible spectrum, 4-point probe, J-V characteristics, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The power conversion efficiency (AM 1.5G conditions) was increased from 0.91% to 2.35% by tuning DMSO doping ratio and annealing temperature. It is believed that the improved power conversion efficiency of the photovoltaics is attributed to the increased conductivity, leading to increasing short-circuit current in DMSO-doped PEDOT:PSS layer.

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Efficiency and Durability of Semi-Transparent Perovskite Solar Cells for BIPV (BIPV에 활용 가능한 반투명 페로브스카이트 태양전지의 효율 및 내구성에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Su-kyung;Kim, Do-hyung;Soh, Joon-young;Choi, Dong-hyeok;Lee, You-sun;Kwak, Min-jun
    • KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.157-161
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    • 2020
  • Regarding greenhouse gas reduction, BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaics) is an important technology that can generate its own power in urban buildings based on clean energy resources. In particular, the perovskite material is attracting attention as a BIPV solar cell because it can have various colors and transparency. However, it is not easy to increase both transparency and efficiency factors because solar cell transparency and efficiency are inversely related to each other. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a semi-transparent perovskite solar cell structure that can improve both transparency and efficiency, and evaluate the stability according to international standard.

Performance Analysis of Cost Effective Portable Solar Photovoltaic Water Pumping System

  • Parmar, Richa;Banerjee, Chandan;Tripathi, Arun K.
    • Current Photovoltaic Research
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    • v.9 no.2
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    • pp.51-58
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    • 2021
  • Solar water pumping system (SWPS) is reliable and beneficial for Indian farmers in irrigation and crop production without accessing utility. The capability of easy installation and deployment, makes it an attractive option in remote areas without grid access. The selection of portable solar based pumps is pertaining to its longer life and economic viability due to lower running cost. The work presented in this manuscript intends to demonstrate performance analysis of portable systems. Consequent investigation reveals PSWS as the emerging option for rural household and marginal farmers. This can be attributed to the fact that, a considerable portion (around 45.7%) of the country's land is farmland and irrigation options are yet to reach farmers who entirely rely on rain water at present for harvesting of the crops. According to census 2010-2011 tube wells are the main source for irrigation amongst all other sources followed by canals. Out of the total 64.57-million-hectare net irrigation area, 48.16% is accounted by small and marginal holdings, 43.77% by semi-medium and medium holdings, and 8.07% by large holdings. As per 2015-16 census data, nearly 100 million farming households would struggle to make ends meet. The work included in this manuscript, presents the performance of different commercial brands and different technologies of DC surface solar water micro pumping systems have been studied (specifically, the centrifugal and reciprocating type pumps have been considered for analysis). The performance of the pumping systems has been analyzed and data is evaluated in terms of quantity of water impelled for specific head. The reciprocating pump has been observed to deliver the best system efficiency.

Improvement of Bleaching Performance of Photosensitive Electrochromic Device by the Additive of TEMPOL (TEMPOL 첨가제 적용에 의한 광감응형 전기변색 소자 탈색성능 향상)

  • Song, Seung Han;Park, Hee sung;Cho, Churl Hee;Hong, Sungjun;Han, Chi-Hwan
    • Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.66 no.3
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    • pp.209-217
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    • 2022
  • We have developed photosensitive electrochromic smart windows that does not require any transparent conducting oxide (TCO) substrate. In our previous study, we demonstrated that a flexible film-type device made with a low temperature curing WO3 sol and TiO2 sol could show a reversible and rapid switching between colored and bleached state via incorporation of platinum catalysts on the surface of WO3 layer. However, when these devices were exposed to sunlight over 4 hour, it was confirmed that they did not return to fully bleached state in the darkened state due to their overcoloring process. In this study, we added 4-hydroxy-(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPOL) as an additive to the electrolyte of photosensitive electrochromic device to effectively prevent the undesired overcoloring process. The resulting device with TEMPOL indeed did not undergo excessive coloration and showed great reversibility even after being exposed to sunlight for over 4 hours. Various concentrations of TEMPOL were applied to compare changes in the visible transmittance and coloring/bleaching kinetics of devices. In terms of energetic point of view, we proposed a plausible mechanism of TEMPOL to prevent excessive coloration.