materials-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Preparation and Application of Advanced Solar Cell Materials and Devices

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2024) | Viewed by 1565

Special Issue Editors

Special Division of Environmental and Energy Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan
Interests: semiconductor material; photoelectric energy conversion; physical vapor deposition
Qi Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan
Interests: perovskite solar cells; organic photovoltaics; light-emitting diode

Special Issue Information

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

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. Materials 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 2600 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

  • perovskite solar cells
  • organic photovoltaics
  • quantum dot solar cells
  • inorganic thin film solar cells
  • tandem device
  • scalable production
  • multi-functional device

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

8 pages, 2812 KiB  
Communication
Mitigating the Trade-Off between Non-Radiative Recombination and Charge Transport to Enable Efficient Ternary Organic Solar Cells
by Yexin Zhang, Shuai Yuan, Congyang Zhang, Chenfeng Ding, Congcong Zhang and Hai Xu
Materials 2023, 16(16), 5620; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16165620 - 14 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1158
Abstract
Ternary organic solar cells (OSCs) have attracted intensive studies due to their promising potential for attaining high-performing photovoltaics, whereas there has been an opening challenge in minimizing the open circuit voltage (Voc) loss while retaining the optimal carrier extraction in [...] Read more.
Ternary organic solar cells (OSCs) have attracted intensive studies due to their promising potential for attaining high-performing photovoltaics, whereas there has been an opening challenge in minimizing the open circuit voltage (Voc) loss while retaining the optimal carrier extraction in the multiple mixture absorbers. Here, we systemically investigate a ternary absorber comprised of two acceptors and a donor, in which the resultant Voc and fill factor are varied and determined by the ratios of acceptor components as a result of the unbalance of non-radiative recombination rates and charge transport. The transient absorption spectroscopy and electroluminescence techniques verify two distinguishable charge-transfer (CT) states in the ternary absorber, and the mismatch of non-radiative recombination rates of those two CT states is demonstrated to be associated with the Voc deficit, whilst the high-emissive acceptor molecule delivers inferior electron mobility, resulting in poor charge transport and a subpar fill factor. These findings enable us to optimize the mixture configuration for attaining the maximal-performing devices. Our results not only provide insight into maximizing the photovoltage of organic solar cells but can also motivate researchers to further unravel the photophysical mechanisms underlying the intermolecular electronic states of organic semiconductors. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop