Home > Press > NREL research identifies increased potential for perovskites as a material for solar cells
Abstract:
Scientists at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated a way to significantly increase the efficiency of perovskite solar cells by reducing the amount of energy lost to heat.
A paper on the discovery, "Observation of a hot-phonon bottleneck in lead-iodide perovskites," was published online this week in the journal Nature Photonics. The research also will appear in the January print edition of the journal.
Present-day photovoltaic cells can only effectively utilize about a third of the available energy, with another third lost to heat and the rest lost to other processes instead of being converted to electricity. The NREL research determined that charge carriers created by absorbing sunlight by the perovskite cells encounter a bottleneck where phonons (heat carrying particles) that are emitted while the charge carriers cool cannot decay quickly enough. Instead, the phonons re-heat the charge carriers, thereby drastically slowing the cooling process and allowing the carriers to retain much more of their initial energy for much longer periods of time. This potentially allows this extra energy to be tapped off in a hot-carrier solar cell.
Ye Yang is lead author of the paper. NREL colleagues David Ostrowski, Ryan France, Kai Zhu, Jao van de Lagemaat, Joey Luther and Matthew Beard also contributed to the research.
The theoretical limit of how much solar energy perovskite cells can convert to electricity if the hot-carriers are utilized could climb from about 33% to 66%. Additional research is needed, including tests on perovskites made from other materials.
Perovskites are a class of materials of enormous importance and have been proven valuable in various technologies from microelectronics to superconductors. Perovskites have only recently been demonstrated to be useful in solar applications. Solar cells made from the perovskite material studied at NREL steadily increased their efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity from 3.8% in 2009 to more than 20% today.
###
This work was supported by the Solar Photochemistry Program of the Division of Chemical Sciences, Biosciences, and Geosciences at the Energy Department's Office of Science (Office of Basic Energy Sciences).
####
About National Renewable Energy Laboratory
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
David Glickson
303-275-4097
Copyright © National Renewable Energy Laboratory
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Related News Press |
News and information
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Superconductivity
Optically trapped quantum droplets of light can bind together to form macroscopic complexes March 8th, 2024
'Sudden death' of quantum fluctuations defies current theories of superconductivity: Study challenges the conventional wisdom of superconducting quantum transitions January 12th, 2024
Researchers at Purdue discover superconductive images are actually 3D and disorder-driven fractals May 12th, 2023
Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
Discoveries
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Utilizing palladium for addressing contact issues of buried oxide thin film transistors April 5th, 2024
Announcements
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Energy
Development of zinc oxide nanopagoda array photoelectrode: photoelectrochemical water-splitting hydrogen production January 12th, 2024
Shedding light on unique conduction mechanisms in a new type of perovskite oxide November 17th, 2023
Inverted perovskite solar cell breaks 25% efficiency record: Researchers improve cell efficiency using a combination of molecules to address different November 17th, 2023
The efficient perovskite cells with a structured anti-reflective layer – another step towards commercialization on a wider scale October 6th, 2023
Solar/Photovoltaic
Development of zinc oxide nanopagoda array photoelectrode: photoelectrochemical water-splitting hydrogen production January 12th, 2024
Shedding light on unique conduction mechanisms in a new type of perovskite oxide November 17th, 2023
Inverted perovskite solar cell breaks 25% efficiency record: Researchers improve cell efficiency using a combination of molecules to address different November 17th, 2023
Charged “molecular beasts” the basis for new compounds: Researchers at Leipzig University use “aggressive” fragments of molecular ions for chemical synthesis November 3rd, 2023
The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
Premium Products | ||
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||