Two dimensional materials created ab-initio by the process of condensation of atoms, molecules or ions, called thin films, have unique properties significantly different from the corresponding bulk materials as a result of their physical dimensions, geometry, non-equilibrium microstructure and metallurgy. These characteristic features of thin films can be drastically modified and tailored to ob...

We use electromagnetic simulations to carry out a systematic study of broadband absorption in vertically-aligned semiconductor nanowire arrays for photovoltaic applications. We study six semiconductor materials that are commonly used for solar cells. We optimize the structural parameters of each nanowire array to maximize the ultimate efficiency. We plot the maximal ultimate efficiency as a fun...

Photovoltaics and photocatalysis are two significant applications of clean and sustainable solar energy, albeit constrained by their inability to harvest the infrared spectrum of solar radiation. Lanthanide-doped materials are particularly promising in this regard, with tunable absorption in the infrared region and the ability to convert the long-wavelength excitation into shorter-wavelength li...

Metal halide perovskite photovoltaic cells could potentially boost the efficiency of commercial silicon photovoltaic modules from ∼20 toward 30% when used in tandem architectures. An optimum perovskite cell optical band gap of ~1.75 electron volts (eV) can be achieved by varying halide composition, but to date, such materials have had poor photostability and thermal stability. Here we present a...

The global freshwater and energy crisis have prompted worldwide investments in rainwater harvesting and solar energy systems. As the implementation of these two systems develops concurrently, they can easily become integrated into one rooftop structure. Photovoltaic systems have the potential to leach heavy metals and other toxins from newly installed, broken or aged modules. Since the type of ...

A current bottleneck in the thin film photovoltaic field is the fabrication of low cost electrodes. We demonstrate ultrasonically spray coated multiwalled carbon nanotube (CNT) layers as opaque and absorptive metal-free electrodes deposited at low temperatures and free of post-deposition treatment. The electrodes show sheet resistance as low as 3.4 Ω □(-1), comparable to evaporated metallic con...

While recent improvements in the reported peak power conversion efficiency (PCE) of hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells have been truly astonishing, there are many fundamental questions about the electronic behavior of these materials. Here we have studied a set of electronic devices employing methylammonium lead iodide ((MA)PbI3) as the active material and conducted a series of tem...

Organic/inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cell has emerged as a very promising candidate for the next generation of near-commercial photovoltaic devices. Here in this work, we focus on the inverted perovskite solar cells and have found that remarkable photovoltaic performance could be obtained when using cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots (QDs) as electron transporting layer (ETL) and lithium...

This article reviews the recent progress of fullerene-tethered oligothiophenes as advanced molecular electronics materials. By covalent linkage with fullerenes, oligothiophenes can be modified into intelligent functional materials. In addition to the characteristics of oligothiophenes as well as fullerenes, these linkage systems show intriguing physical properties such as photoinduced electron ...

This paper briefs the photothermal reliability studies we conducted on different encapsulation materials for some U.S. PV companies that are subcontractors of the Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology (PVMaT) program. The results indicate that the photothermal stability of two foreign ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) films is dependent on the formulation, curing method and condition, as well as acc...