High‐quality charge carrier transport materials are of key importance for stable and efficient perovskite‐based photovoltaics. This work reports on electron‐beam‐evaporated nickel oxide (NiOx) ...layers, resulting in stable power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of up to 18.5% when integrated into solar cells employing inkjet‐printed perovskite absorbers. By adding oxygen as a process gas and optimizing the layer thickness, transparent and efficient NiOx hole transport layers (HTLs) are fabricated, exhibiting an average absorptance of only 1%. The versatility of the material is demonstrated for different absorber compositions and deposition techniques. As another highlight of this work, all‐evaporated perovskite solar cells employing an inorganic NiOx HTL are presented, achieving stable PCEs of up to 15.4%. Along with good PCEs, devices with electron‐beam‐evaporated NiOx show improved stability under realistic operating conditions with negligible degradation after 40 h of maximum power point tracking at 75 °C. Additionally, a strong improvement in device stability under ultraviolet radiation is found if compared to conventional perovskite solar cell architectures employing other metal oxide charge transport layers (e.g., titanium dioxide). Finally, an all‐evaporated perovskite solar mini‐module with a NiOx HTL is presented, reaching a PCE of 12.4% on an active device area of 2.3 cm2.
A highly transparent nickel oxide hole transport layer prepared by oxygen‐assisted electron beam evaporation for perovskite‐based photovoltaics is reported. Using these layers in perovskite solar cells, efficient devices with stable power conversion efficiencies up to 18.5% for inkjet‐printed absorbers and 15.4% for co‐evaporated absorbers are demonstrated. In addition, good stability at elevated temperature and under ultraviolet radiation is shown.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Organic–inorganic hybrids are a class of functional materials that combine favorable properties of their constituents to achieve an overall improved performance for a wide range of applications. This ...article presents the synthesis route for P3HT-porous silicon hybrids for thermoelectric applications. The conjugated polymer P3HT is incorporated into the porous silicon matrix by means of melt infiltration. Gravimetry, sorption isotherms and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) mapping indicate that the organic molecules occupy more than 50% of the void space in the inorganic host. We demonstrate that subsequent diffusion-based doping of the confined polymer in a FeCl3 solution increases the electrical conductivity of the hybrid by five orders of magnitude compared to the empty porous silicon host.
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•P3HT occupy roughly 50% of porous silicon pore space.•Diffusion-based doping of the confined polymer with FeCl3.•Increased conduction in hybrids compared to the empty pSi.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Precision thermal Hall measurements unlock potential for unraveling fundamental thermal transport principles in novel materials. This work addresses the challenge of resolving sub-mK temperature ...differences in magnetic fields by employing high-precision capacitance thermometry with thermalized electronics, achieving a background noise of approximately Image 1 at Image 2. The novelty lies in the improvement and combination of innovative approaches, including the application of attenuators for thermal anchoring, a modular multi-stage approach to reduce thermal gradients, direct thermometer-sample assembly, and the use of individual capacitance bridges for faster measurements. The setup performance is demonstrated for the pyrochlore oxide terbium titanate and the longitudinal and transverse thermal conductivities agree with the literature. We show that the transverse temperature difference is proportional to the product of magnetic field times heating power for fields up to Image 3, enabling improved statistics compared to individual sweeps analysis. We conduct an analysis of uncertainties in the transverse thermal conductivity, considering various thermometer calibrations for extracting temperature differences. This analysis reveals a significant influence of the longitudinal conductivity on the transverse thermal conductivity. These advancements allow for unprecedented temperature resolution and stability, while identified resolution limitations pave the way for next-generation setups.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The knowledge of minority and majority charge carrier properties enables controlling the performance of solar cells, transistors, detectors, sensors, and LEDs. Here, we developed the constant light ...induced magneto transport method which resolves electron and hole mobility, lifetime, diffusion coefficient and length, and quasi-Fermi level splitting. We demonstrate the implication of the constant light induced magneto transport for silicon and metal halide perovskite films. We resolve the transport properties of electrons and holes predicting the material's effectiveness for solar cell application without making the full device. The accessibility of fourteen material parameters paves the way for in-depth exploration of causal mechanisms limiting the efficiency and functionality of material structures. To demonstrate broad applicability, we further characterized twelve materials with drift mobilities spanning from 10
to 10
cm
V
s
and lifetimes varying between 10
and 10
seconds. The universality of our method its potential to advance optoelectronic devices in various technological fields.
In order to study the thermoelectric properties of individual nanowires, a thermoelectric nanowire characterization platform (TNCP) has been previously developed and used in our chair. Here, we ...report on a redesigned platform aiming to optimize performance, mechanical stability and usability. We compare both platforms for electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient for an individual Ag nanowire of the previously-used batch and for comparable measurement conditions. By this, the measurement performance of both designs can be investigated. As a result, whereas the electrical conductivity is comparable, the Seebeck coefficient shows a 50% deviation with respect to the previous studies. We discuss the possible effects of the platform design on the thermoelectric measurements. One reason for the deviation of the Seebeck coefficient is the design of the platform leading to temperature gradients along the bond pads. We further analyze the effect of bonding materials Au and Pt, as well as the effect of temperature distributions along the bond pads used for the thermovoltage acquisition. Another major reason for the variation of the measurement results is the non-homogeneous temperature distribution along the thermometer. We conclude that for the measurement of small Seebeck coefficients, an isothermal positioning of voltage-probing bond pads, as well as a constant temperature profile at the measurement zone are essential.
Nanostructured silicon and silicon-aluminum compounds are synthesized by a novel synthesis strategy based on spark plasma sintering (SPS) of silicon nanopowder, mesoporous silicon (pSi), and aluminum ...nanopowder. The interplay of metal-assisted crystallization and inherent porosity is exploited to largely suppress thermal conductivity. Morphology and temperature-dependent thermal conductivity studies allow us to elucidate the impact of porosity and nanostructure on the macroscopic heat transport. Analytic electron microscopy along with quantitative image analysis is applied to characterize the sample morphology in terms of domain size and interpore distance distributions. We demonstrate that nanostructured domains and high porosity can be maintained in densified mesoporous silicon samples. In contrast, strong grain growth is observed for sintered nanopowders under similar sintering conditions. We observe that aluminum agglomerations induce local grain growth, while aluminum diffusion is observed in porous silicon and dispersed nanoparticles. A detailed analysis of the measured thermal conductivity between 300 and 773 K allows us to distinguish the effect of reduced thermal conductivity caused by porosity from the reduction induced by phonon scattering at nanosized domains. With a modified Landauer/Lundstrom approach the relative thermal conductivity and the scattering length are extracted. The relative thermal conductivity confirms the applicability of Kirkpatrick’s effective medium theory. The extracted scattering lengths are in excellent agreement with the harmonic mean of log-normal distributed domain sizes and the interpore distances combined by Matthiessen’s rule.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
CuI has been recently rediscovered as a p-type transparent conductor with a high figure of merit. Even though many metal iodides are hygroscopic, the effect of moisture on the electrical properties ...of CuI has not been clarified. In this work, we observe a 2-fold increase in the conductivity of CuI after exposure to ambient humidity for 5 h, followed by slight long-term degradation. Simultaneously, the work function of CuI decreases by almost 1 eV, which can explain the large spread in the previously reported work function values. The conductivity increase is partially reversible and is maximized at intermediate humidity levels. On the basis of the large intragrain mobility measured by THz spectroscopy, we suggest that hydration of grain boundaries may be beneficial for the overall hole mobility.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Numerous phosphorus-rich metal phosphides containing both P–P bonds and metal–P bonds are known from the solid-state chemistry literature. A method to grow these materials in thin-film form would be ...desirable, as thin films are required in many applications and they are an ideal platform for high-throughput studies. In addition, the high density and smooth surfaces achievable in thin films are a significant advantage for characterization of transport and optical properties. Despite these benefits, there is hardly any published work on even the simplest binary phosphorus-rich phosphide films. Here, we demonstrate growth of single-phase CuP2 films by a two-step process involving reactive sputtering of amorphous CuP2+x and rapid annealing in an inert atmosphere. At the crystallization temperature, CuP2 is thermodynamically unstable with respect to Cu3P and P4. However, CuP2 can be stabilized if the amorphous precursors are mixed on the atomic scale and are sufficiently close to the desired composition (neither too P poor nor too P rich). Fast formation of polycrystalline CuP2, combined with a short annealing time, makes it possible to bypass the diffusion processes responsible for decomposition. We find that thin-film CuP2 is a 1.5 eV band gap semiconductor with interesting properties, such as a high optical absorption coefficient (above 105 cm–1), low thermal conductivity (1.1 W/(K m)), and composition-insensitive electrical conductivity (around 1 S/cm). We anticipate that our processing route can be extended to other phosphorus-rich phosphides that are still awaiting thin-film synthesis and will lead to a more complete understanding of these materials and of their potential applications.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
This article presents inelastic thermal neutron scattering experiments probing the phonon dispersion in mesoporous silicon with pores 8 nm across. Scattering studies reveal the energy–momentum ...relation for transverse and longitudinal phonons along the high symmetry directions ΓL¯, ΓK¯ and ΓX¯ in the Brillouin zone. The dispersion up to phonon energies of 35 meV unambiguously proves that the phonon group velocities in highly-crystalline silicon are not modified by nanostructuring down to sub-10 nanometer length scales. On these length scales, there is apparently no effect of structuring on the elastic moduli of mesoporous silicon. No evidence can be found for phonon-softening in topologically complex, geometrically disordered mesoporous silicon putting it in contrast to silicon nanotubes and nanoribbons.
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•Inelastic neutron scattering shows phonon dispersion in mesoporous silicon up to the Brillouin zone boundary.•Stiffness tensor of crystalline porous silicon is determined.•No phonon softening in sub 10 nm structured porous silicon.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP