Ultrathin layers for charge extraction in perovskite solar cells

"Photovoltaics (PV) has significant potential to reduce the world's carbon footprint and contribute to the UK's Net Zero strategy. Hybrid PV boasts of competitive performance coupled to low-cost manufacturing infrastructure and materials, making them a contender for wide-scale power generation. However, progress has plateaued and device stability remains a key barrier to large-scale manufacture.

Currently, charge transport materials limit the device performance and stability and contribute significantly to their manufacturing costs. Critically, state of the art devices incorporate materials that are expensive to manufacture and require dopants to enhance their conductivity, compromising the overall stability of the system and introducing a charge transport bottleneck, making them the weakest link in the system.

Combining synthetic expertise from the Cooke group and device fabrication from the Docampo group, this project will develop self-assembled ultrathin layers (SAULs) as the charge extraction contacts. The student will develop a novel anchoring strategy on the perovskite surface that does not generate traps at the interface. This will deliver perovskite solar cells that replace all charge extraction layers with SAULs., effectively bypassing charge transport limitations and will enable the next leap in device performance. "