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Nanomaterials for Solar Cells
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Nanomaterials for Solar Cells

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 7828

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Braulio García-Cámara

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronic Technology, School of Engineering, Carlos III University of Madrid, GDAF-UC3M, Madrid, Spain
Interests: photonics; solar cells; detectors; liquid crystals; optics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Ricardo Vergaz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Interests: electro-optical sensors; solar cells; impedance spectroscopy; nanostructures; free-space optical communications and assistive technology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Increasing the power conversion efficiency of solar cells is potentially the most important and continuous challenge in photovoltaics. This desirable increment is not only required to improve the energy conversion capabilities of these devices but also to reduce their thickness and cost. Additionally, future solar devices should accomplish the requirements of the upcoming energetic paradigms. For instance, considerable advances in the Internet-of-Things and the growing use of wearable devices will require wearable power supplies to cover their power consumption.

In recent years, it has been demonstrated that nanostructures and complex metamaterials can manage light in a large variety of aspects such as guidance, directional control, and filtering, among others. This control is useful in a huge amount of applications. Common examples are photonic devices for optical communications, imaging systems, and energy harvesting.

This Special Issue offers a new opportunity to publish the latest advances in the design and performance of nanostructured devices and metamaterials with potential use in photonic devices for solar energy, as well as generation and detection of light. This a wide topic with a multidisciplinary point of view. Hence, we want to encourage you to submit your works and share your recent research. Both theoretical and experimental works will be considered.

Prof. Dr. Braulio Garcia-Camara
Prof. Dr. Ricardo Vergaz
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. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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

  • Metasurfaces
  • Thin-film solar cells
  • Nanostructures
  • Light management
  • Photonics devices
  • Light emission
  • Photonic detectors

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2036 KiB  
Article
Broadband Unidirectional Forward Scattering with High Refractive Index Nanostructures: Application in Solar Cells
by Ángela Barreda, Pablo Albella, Fernando Moreno and Francisco González
Molecules 2021, 26(15), 4421; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26154421 - 22 Jul 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1695
Abstract
High refractive index dielectric (HRID) nanoparticles are a clear alternative to metals in nanophotonic applications due to their low losses and directional scattering properties. It has been demonstrated that HRID dimers are more efficient scattering units than single nanoparticles in redirecting the incident [...] Read more.
High refractive index dielectric (HRID) nanoparticles are a clear alternative to metals in nanophotonic applications due to their low losses and directional scattering properties. It has been demonstrated that HRID dimers are more efficient scattering units than single nanoparticles in redirecting the incident radiation towards the forward direction. This effect was recently reported and is known as the “near zero-backward” scattering condition, attained when nanoparticles forming dimers strongly interact with each other. Here, we analyzed the electromagnetic response of HRID isolated nanoparticles and aggregates when deposited on monolayer and graded-index multilayer dielectric substrates. In particular, we studied the fraction of radiation that is scattered towards a substrate with known optical properties when the nanoparticles are located on its surface. We demonstrated that HRID dimers can increase the radiation emitted towards the substrate compared to that of isolated nanoparticles. However, this effect was only present for low values of the substrate refractive index. With the aim of observing the same effect for silicon substrates, we show that it is necessary to use a multilayer antireflection coating. We conclude that dimers of HRID nanoparticles on a graded-index multilayer substrate can increase the radiation scattered into a silicon photovoltaic wafer. The results in this work can be applied to the design of novel solar cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Cells)
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14 pages, 3336 KiB  
Article
Preparation and Characterization of Thin-Film Solar Cells with Ag/C60/MAPbI3/CZTSe/Mo/FTO Multilayered Structures
by Tsung-Wen Chang, Chzu-Chiang Tseng, Dave W. Chen, Gwomei Wu, Chia-Ling Yang and Lung-Chien Chen
Molecules 2021, 26(12), 3516; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26123516 - 09 Jun 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2669
Abstract
New solar cells with Ag/C60/MAPbI3/Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe)/Mo/FTO multilayered structures on glass substrates have been prepared and investigated in this study. The electron-transport layer, active photovoltaic layer, and hole-transport layer were made of C60, CH3 [...] Read more.
New solar cells with Ag/C60/MAPbI3/Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe)/Mo/FTO multilayered structures on glass substrates have been prepared and investigated in this study. The electron-transport layer, active photovoltaic layer, and hole-transport layer were made of C60, CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3) perovskite, and CZTSe, respectively. The CZTSe hole-transport layers were deposited by magnetic sputtering, with the various thermal annealing temperatures at 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C, and the film thickness was also varied at 50~300 nm The active photovoltaic MAPbI3 films were prepared using a two-step spin-coating method on the CZTSe hole-transport layers. It has been revealed that the crystalline structure and domain size of the MAPbI3 perovskite films could be substantially improved. Finally, n-type C60 was vacuum-evaporated to be the electronic transport layer. The 50 nm C60 thin film, in conjunction with 100 nm Ag electrode layer, provided adequate electron current transport in the multilayered structures. The solar cell current density–voltage characteristics were evaluated and compared with the thin-film microstructures. The photo-electronic power-conversion efficiency could be improved to 14.2% when the annealing temperature was 500 °C and the film thickness was 200 nm. The thin-film solar cell characteristics of open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, fill factor, series-resistance, and Pmax were found to be 1.07 V, 19.69 mA/cm2, 67.39%, 18.5 Ω and 1.42 mW, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Cells)
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12 pages, 3518 KiB  
Article
Air Annealing Effect on Oxygen Vacancy Defects in Al-doped ZnO Films Grown by High-Speed Atmospheric Atomic Layer Deposition
by Chia-Hsun Hsu, Xin-Peng Geng, Wan-Yu Wu, Ming-Jie Zhao, Xiao-Ying Zhang, Pao-Hsun Huang and Shui-Yang Lien
Molecules 2020, 25(21), 5043; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25215043 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 2858
Abstract
In this study, aluminum-doped zinc oxide (Al:ZnO) thin films were grown by high-speed atmospheric atomic layer deposition (AALD), and the effects of air annealing on film properties are investigated. The experimental results show that the thermal annealing can significantly reduce the amount of [...] Read more.
In this study, aluminum-doped zinc oxide (Al:ZnO) thin films were grown by high-speed atmospheric atomic layer deposition (AALD), and the effects of air annealing on film properties are investigated. The experimental results show that the thermal annealing can significantly reduce the amount of oxygen vacancies defects as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy spectra due to the in-diffusion of oxygen from air to the films. As shown by X-ray diffraction, the annealing repairs the crystalline structure and releases the stress. The absorption coefficient of the films increases with the annealing temperature due to the increased density. The annealing temperature reaching 600 °C leads to relatively significant changes in grain size and band gap. From the results of band gap and Hall-effect measurements, the annealing temperature lower than 600 °C reduces the oxygen vacancies defects acting as shallow donors, while it is suspected that the annealing temperature higher than 600 °C can further remove the oxygen defects introduced mid-gap states. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Cells)
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