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I'm curious how this process works. Is it that the researchers are experimenting with different ingredients and seeing what works best? Or do they have a clear

I'm curious how this process works. Is it that the researchers are experimenting with different ingredients and seeing what works best? Or do they have a clear idea what sort of structure they want to build and the research complexity is in how to get the various ingredients to assemble into the required structure? Basically wondering how the researchers go about planning a research program and how clear the goals and timelines are.

cycomanic 4y ago
I'm not working in solar cells but do research in optics and have a general understanding of this (also from discussions with people who understand this better). The main limiter for solar cells from silicon is the overlap of the bandgap with the spectrum of the sunlight and also the loss in efficiency when cells get hot. So what people do is they use multiple materials (often in different layers) that cover different parts of the spectrum to absorp most of the sunlight. Researchers tend to have a good idea which these are (although there is research in creating new organic ones), but the challenge is to combine this in fabrication with the silicon and in a cheap easy to fabricate way and with materials that don't degrade over time. So short answer researchers have a general idea what needs to be done, but as usual the devil is in the details. Again not an expert in the exact area, so anyone who is please correct if something isn't right.
tuatoru 4y ago
Also not an expert, but from my reading it's all engineering. The physics is sufficiently well understood and variations can be simulated. It's about preventing reflections at various surface boundaries (or more generally, controlling reflections everywhere) and structuring things so that different wavelengths go to the right layers, and preventing recombination, and a zillion other details. Material quality and process control to get the right surface properties are very important. The cells that make it out of the lab are those where the cells are robust and processes can be adapted and scaled to mamufacturing quantities, competitively with current products.

cycomanic 4y ago

I'm not working in solar cells but do research in optics and have a general understanding of this (also from discussions with people who understand this better). The main limiter for solar cells from silicon is the overlap of the bandgap with the spectrum of the sunlight and also the loss in efficiency when cells get hot. So what people do is they use multiple materials (often in different layers) that cover different parts of the spectrum to absorp most of the sunlight. Researchers tend to have a good idea which these are (although there is research in creating new organic ones), but the challenge is to combine this in fabrication with the silicon and in a cheap easy to fabricate way and with materials that don't degrade over time. So short answer researchers have a general idea what needs to be done, but as usual the devil is in the details. Again not an expert in the exact area, so anyone who is please correct if something isn't right.

tuatoru 4y ago

Also not an expert, but from my reading it's all engineering. The physics is sufficiently well understood and variations can be simulated. It's about preventing reflections at various surface boundaries (or more generally, controlling reflections everywhere) and structuring things so that different wavelengths go to the right layers, and preventing recombination, and a zillion other details. Material quality and process control to get the right surface properties are very important. The cells that make it out of the lab are those where the cells are robust and processes can be adapted and scaled to mamufacturing quantities, competitively with current products.