Swansea University in the UK has demonstrated that organic solar cells can generate quantum yields of near-unity charges.
These results provide a path for designing and building higher-performance solar cell designs, which will help us to ensure our future with renewable energy sources that meet our sustainability goals.
Dr. Wei Li and Ardalan Arin led the research at Swansea. They focused on advanced characterization methods and how they can help us understand PV materials. Device physics is also a key component of engineering solutions. The team performed a variety of temperature dependent measurements including temperature dependent photovoltaic exterior quantum efficiency (EQE) and temperature dependent absorbance in order to study the thermodynamic as well as kinetic processes.
Researchers can now quickly measure the EQE solar cells at different temperatures using these results.
This research further improves our understanding of PV processes by revealing the relationship between charge generation, recombination and device efficiency in new non-fullerene state-of-the-art solar cells.
Dr. Ardalan Arin, Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, Swansea University comments:
We are pleased to share our positive research results with the scientific community. We are also excited to see where the future takes PV cells as a reliable and high-performing renewable energy source. Linkam LTS420E -P is an essential component of our research. It regulates temperatures with precision which is crucial for our sensitive measurements.
Dr. Duncan Stacey is the Sales and Marketing Director at Linkam Scientific Instruments. He shares his thoughts about the research.
Swansea’s team has made a major breakthrough in the solar PV space. This will bring us closer to a sustainable future powered by renewable energy. We are proud of the contributions of the LTS420E/P stage to the University’s work in the development of new organic materials.
Linkam LTS420E is an evolution of its original LTS420 stage. The LTS420E–P is compact, simple to use and connects to other instrumentation.
Temperature and environmental control can be controlled by the sample. The larger stage body permits up to 8 positional probes made of tungsten to be attached to the sample chamber’s electrical connectors. This allows the user to take electrical measurements of the sample and control the temperature in a gas-tight environment.
