Earth-abundant materials for next-generation photovoltaics

Energy Futures Lab hosts a seminar from Dr Samantha Hood on new technologies being used in photovoltaics.

Abstract

With the highest growth rate of any renewable energy technology, the conversion of sunlight to electricity in photovoltaic (PV) devices is of key importance to ensure a sustainable future. Currently, silicon solar cells make up around 90% of the commercial PV market; however, due to the poor absorption of silicon and high intensity processing, it is difficult to increase efficiencies and lower costs of this technology. In order to expand into a tera-watt PV industry and create technology for building-integrated PV, we must design lower cost and more efficient thin-film solar devices made from earth-abundant materials. In this talk, she will show how we are designing sustainable thin-film PV using first-principles techniques to find next-generation crystalline absorbers. She will discuss how our computational tools and predictive simulation techniques can determine whether defects present in materials (such as kesterite solar cells) will be detrimental to the efficiencies of candidate absorbers . By applying these tools to screen earth-abundant materials, we hope to identify promising solar absorbers for low cost and efficient solar energy.

Biography

Samantha is a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Design Group at Imperial College London designing new, sustainable materials for thin-film solar technology. In particular, she is searching for earth-abundant materials with the ability to absorb sunlight and efficiently transport charges to generate electricity.