Next Generation Photovoltaics

M. Breig, KIT

T.T. Prof. Ulrich W. Paetzold has been awarded a highly endowed ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). He leads an international and highly interdisciplinary research group on new materials and processes for next generation photovoltaics. The ERC award will further strengthen his research on perovskite (tandem) photovoltaics. The proposed project aims to develop a radically new manufacturing process for high quality perovskite semiconductor that has the potential to overcome key challenges of perovskite thin film processing.

Photo: B. A. Nejand, KIT

Light management, high-throughput laser interconnections and industrial coationg methods pave the way to the world’s first all perovskite tandem solar module - The team of T.T.Prof. U. Paetzold reports in Nature Energy

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01059-w

Photo: Bramsiepe, KIT

Upscaling perovskite photovoltaics from cell to module level with scalable processes is a key challenge. Researchers at IMT and LTI have now produced perovskite solar modules with almost no loss of scaling. They combine laser-scribed interconnection lines with the ease of co-evaporated perovskites.
(Photo: Amadeus Bramsiepe, KIT)

Dr. Paul Fassl received the Excellent Poster award at the 2020 Material Research Society (MRS) Virtual Spring/Fall Meeting for his contributed poster “Revealing the internal luminescence quantum efficiency of perovskite films via accurate quantification of photon recycling”. The results of this important contribution in perovskite research have recently been published in the journal Matter (https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(21)00019-9).

Photo: Breig, KIT

Efficient materials for solar cells of the future - New model for determining photoluminescence quantum yields
(Photo: Markus Breig, KIT)

Gips-Schüle-Stiftung, 2020

Dr. Tobias Abzieher receives one of the renowned Young Scientist Awards 2020 of the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung for his dissertation. Due to its high relevance for the sustainable and responsible use of resources, the foundation chose the work of Dr. Abzieher as one of the three best technical and scientific dissertations in Baden-Württemberg in 2019/20. (Photo: Gips-Schüle-Stiftung, 2020)

More about the Young Scientist Awards 2020 of the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung (in German)

The Optical Society (OSA) features the work of Helge Eggers presented on Inkjet-Printed Perovskite Photovoltaics at the Optical Society (OSA) 2020 Advanced Photonics Congress with a press release. Helge Eggers, doctoral student in the research group of Dr. Ulrich W. Paetzold from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, presented his latest achievements of a perovskite solar cells with inkjet-printed absorber and extraction layers, reaching power conversion efficiencies above 17%. He received the Best Student Paper 1st Prize.

Figure: Adapted from Eggers et al., Adv. Energy Mater. 2020, 10, 1903184.

02.10.2019 - Doctoral student Saba Gharibzadeh from the Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT) received the best poster award at the International Conference on Perovskite Solar Cells and Optoelectronics in Lausanne (Switzerland). The award was given for her poster on “Record Open Circuit Voltage in High Efficiency Wide-Bandgap Perovskite Solar Cells” by Prof. M. Graetzel.

The Perovskite-Photovoltaics White Paper by the European Perovskite Initiative (EPKI) aims to raise the awareness of perovskite-based photovoltaics with governments, politicians, investors, industries, to support and initiate new generation Perovskite-PV industrial initiatives, and to facilitate joint-research programs and synergies amongst its members. Dr. Ulrich W. Paetzold, coordinator of the Taskforce Perovskite Photovoltaics at KIT, is one of the authors of this endeavour.

For more information: https://epki.eu/

01.08.2019 - Doctoral student Raphael Schmager from the Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT) received an award for the best student presentation at the OSA Advanced Photonics Congress in San Francisco. The award was given for his oral presentation on “Nanophotonic Perovskite Thin-Film Solar Cells by Thermal Nano-imprint Lithography” in the topical meeting on “Optical Devices and Materials for Solid Energy and Solid-state Lightning”.

A team at KIT has developed an innovative hole conductor layer that can be deposited over a large area and leads to record efficiencies (Photo: Tobias Abzieher, KIT).
doi:10.1002/aenm.201802995

German television contribution

Our recent work on 2D/3D perovskite heterostructures for photovoltaics was highlighted with a cover in Advanced Energy materials.
doi:10.1002/aenm.201803699

In a recent publication, we reported on high‐quality inorganic charge extraction layers which are of key importance for efficient and stable perovskite‐based photovoltaics. The work was published in Advanced Energy Materials and highlighted with a cover.

Our recent article “Energy yield of all thin‐film perovskite/CIGS tandem solar modules” by Malte Langenhorst et al. (doi:10.1002/pip.3091) was highlighted as a cover. Have fun reading it!”

Researchers and industrial partners develop printed perovskite solar modules for flexible use in buildings (Photo: IMT/KIT).

Scientists at KIT copy microstructures from the viola petal and improve performance of solar cells.
doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01153

06.10.2017 - Doctoral student Tobias Abzieher from the Light Technology Institute received an award for the best student oral presentation in the Fall Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (EMRS) in Warsaw.

At the KIT Open Day 2017 the photovoltaics experts at IMT organized a Solar Car Race. The event attracted a lot of visitors, who got the chance constructing their own solar-powered electric cars.

A prototype of a Perovskite/CIGS  thin-film solar module achieves an efficiency of 17.8 percent and surpasses for the first time the efficiency of separate perovskite and CIGS solar modules (Picture: imec/ZSW/KIT). Article in optics.org.