Physics Commons^™

Investigating New Methods To Develop Perovskite Solar Cells, Amani Hussain Alfaifi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Discovering the potential of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites (MHP) as a harvesting material in solar cells has strongly affected the research direction in solar energy. The fascinating optical and electronic properties offered by MHP combined with tremendous effort from scientists around the world have improved the efficiency to about 25% in a decade.

In the first part of the dissertation, we studied the lamination process as a new fabrication method for producing self-encapsulated perovskite solar cells based on laminating half stacks,as opposed to the conventional layer-by-layer method. Our work focused on optimizing the lamination process of complex triple cations perovskite …

Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition Of Functional Oxide Materials For Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells, Kristopher Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Functional oxides are versatile materials that can simultaneously enable efficiency gains and cost reductions in crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. In this work, the deposition of functional oxide materials using atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) and the integration of these materials into c-Si solar cells are explored. Specifically, thin oxide films and multi-layer film stacks are utilized for the following purposes: (1) to minimize front surface reflectance without increasing parasitic absorption within the anti-reflection coating(s); (2) to maximize internal back reflectance of rear passivated cells, thereby increasing optical absorption of weakly absorbed long wavelength photons (? > 900 nm); (3) …

Metal Blacks As Scattering Centers To Increase The Efficiency Of Thin Film Solar Cells, Deep R. Panjwani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metal nano particles are investigated as scattering centers on front surface of thin-film solar cells to improve efficiency. The principle is that scattering, which is enhanced near the plasmon resonance frequency of the particle and depends on particle size, increases the effective optical path length of incident light, leading to more light absorption in active layer of thin film solar cell. The particular types of particles investigated here are known as "metal-black", well known as an IR absorber for bolometric infrared detectors. Gold-black was deposited on commercial thin-film solar cells using a thermal evaporator in a nitrogen ambient at pressures …