The UCL/IEEE Student Branch along with Prof. Denis Flandre is glad to invite you to the following seminar:
PercIGS – Employing Si solar cell technology to increase efficiency of ultra-thin Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cell
given by Bart Vermang, Postdoctoral Researcher at Uppsala University.
The event will be held on Thursday February 26 at 11 am in the Shannon Room (Maxwell A.105).
Abstract:
The intention of PercIGS is to advance thin-film (TF) solar cell design by the use of state-of-the-art Si solar cell know-how. Previously, most TF solar cell R&D has been successfully focused on enhancing semiconductor material quality. However, as the material quality of typical TF semiconductors (copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) …) upgraded, other solar cell parts became the new bottlenecks to increase cell efficiency even further. Such a novel area of attention is the rear-contact/semiconductor rear interface, where recombination of charge carriers typically is rather high. Indeed, as the TF semiconductor material enhancements also resulted in longer diffusion lengths, this highly recombinative rear interface starts to limit further efficiency increases. Therefore, in PercIGS the introduction of a rear surface passivation layer with nano-sized contacts is suggested and developed as innovative approach to reduce recombination of charge carriers at the rear CIGS semiconductor interface. This idea stems from the Si solar cell industry, where at the rear of advanced cell concepts rear surface passivation layers are combined with micron-sized point openings. This PercIGS project has been focused on CIGS solar cells – as they offer the highest efficiencies of all TF technologies – but the concept can be generalized to other high quality TF solar cell technologies as well.
Biography:
Bart Vermang received the M.Sc. degree in experimental physics from the University of Ghent (Ghent, Belgium) in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) in 2012. During the M.Sc. final research project he studied surface reactions in model metallic catalyst systems at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. He performed his Ph.D. research at Imec in Belgium, where he developed novel surface passivation structures for industrial silicon solar cells. Thereafter, he held a Postdoctoral position at the University of Uppsala (Uppsala, Sweden), where his challenge was to integrate progressive Si solar cell concepts in thin-film cells. In 2015, he returned to Imec to work on the development of high band-gap thin films for use as top absorber material in tandem solar cells. For more details, see [http://se.linkedin.com/in/bvermang] or [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bart_Vermang]