Rise in energy consumption and pollution levels during last century have prompted search for alternative energy sources. Currently one of the most rapidly developing alternative energy sources is photovoltaics. The dominant technology at the moment is silicon solar cells; however, it has some drawbacks of its own: complex production processes, need for extremely pure silicon, expensive manufacturing equipment make it quite a pricy alternative. Therefore, there is a constant search for alternative materials and technologies to replace or enhance traditional silicon photovoltaics. One of the most promising new developments is perovskite solar cells. In just a few years their efficiency has risen dramatically from 4% to 22%, while silicon/perovskite solar cell tandem has reached 27% efficiency. Although progress of perovskite solar cell technology is impressive, there is still number of hurdles to overcome. One of them, use of suitable hole transporting material. Currently utilized organic molecules are expensive to synthesize and require a mixture of dopants for optimal performance. Furthermore, use of the legirants has a detrimental effect on overall long-term stability of the devices. One of the possible solution to this problem could be use of inorganic legirant-free hole transporting materials. Vast majority of of inorganic hole transporting materials are deposited either using water based solutions, high temperatures (200 °C and above) or reagents incompatible with perovskite technology. Inorganic semiconductors obtained from well soluble organometallic precursors during low temperature (below 150 °C) process could be a welcome alternative. Goal of this work is to synthesize and investigate organometallic precursors which would transform into inorganic hole transporting semiconductors under mild heat treatment.
Project funding:
Project is funded by EU Structural Funds according to the 2014–2020 Operational Programme for the European Union Funds’ Investments priority “Development of scientific competence of researchers, other researchers, students through practical scientific activities” under Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712.
Project results:
Expected project result – organometallic materials which would have suitable thermal and film-forming properties for use as precursors for formation of inorganic hole transporting layers. By participating in this research project young researcher will gain valuable experience in new and rapidly evolving field of research. Results will be presented at the scientific conference of the relevant field.
Period of project implementation: 2018-10-01 - 2019-04-30
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
