Project R-16533

Novel scalable passivating strategies for perovskite solar modules with minimized upscaling loss (Research)

Energy transition and independence in Europe is more urgent than ever due to the current energy crisis. For a sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply in Europe following the REPowerEU Plan, and for a climate neutral energy supply by 2050, photovoltaics (PV) for electricity generation is seen as a key solution. In recent years, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been under the spotlight as a promising candidate for next-generation PV technology, either in a format of single junction solar cell or in combination with matured silicon PV technology forming a multijunction device. The certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) has reached 26.7% for single junction cells, and 34.6% for perovskite-silicon 2-terminal tandem solar cells. Despite the rapid progress on PCEs, most of the high-performing cells (typically 0.05-0.1 cm2) were fabricated with non-scalable laboratory-scale processes. The performance of large perovskite solar modules to date substantially lags behind those high-performing tiny cells. To minimize such upscaling losses, uniform deposition of perovskite with high quality over large area substrate is crucial. Defects suppression and passivation in the bulk and at the interfaces are therefore essential for both high initial performance and longer-term stability of perovskite photovoltaics. Commonly, solution processing such as spin coating is widely used for such passivating interlayers at the interfaces between perovskite and charge transport layers. However, such passivating interlayers are often extremely thin (sub-nanometer to a few nanometers), which is rather challenging to have entire coverage with uniformity over large substrate sizes by solution based process. In this regard, there is nowadays a growing interest in exploring industrially compatible deposition methods for such ultrathin passivating interlayers.

01 September 2025 - 31 August 2029