Preparation and Application of Advanced Solar Cell Materials and Devices

Dear Colleagues,

Solar cell is a technique to convert solar energy to electricity and promote the development of a carbon-free society. In the past decade, many emerging photovoltaic techniques such as perovskite solar cells (PSCs), organic photovoltaics (OPV), quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) and inorganic thin film solar cells have been comprehensively studied beside the mature crystal silicon (c-Si) solar cells.

Among them, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PSCs is undergoing a rapid increase from 3.8% to 25.7% due to the outstanding optoelectronic properties of the metal halide perovskite materials, such as long carrier diffusion length, low cost, and solution processability. There are many aspects such as the device structure, stability, tandem architecture, scalable production, and multi-functional device of PSCs to be discussed before their industrialization.

Besides the PSCs, recently, the PCE of OPV is approaching 20% benefit from the developing of non-fullerene electron acceptors. Additionally, QDSCs with a facile low-temperature deposition process and strong visible-to-infrared absorption have achieved a PCE over 18%. Inorganic thin film photovoltaics such as Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) and Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ (CZTSe) solar cells with abundant raw materials and a PCE around 12-13% have also attracted increasing attention. These new types of advanced solar cells will likely further promote the solar energy conversion and decrease the cost of production, and extend the application scenarios to indoor photovoltaics, building-integrated photovoltaics, flexible electronics, and outside space application. In this Special Issue, we aim to collect the research topics of preparation and application of advanced solar cell materials and devices based on, but not limited to, the solar cell types mentioned above. We kindly invite you to submit a manuscript(s) for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Dr. Xiao Liu
Dr. Tianhao Wu
Guest Editors

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