Advanced Energy Devices
One of the biggest challenges of the near future is to meet the rapidly growing energy
demand with clean energy. Greenhouse gas emissions produced by coal, oil, and natural gas
are major contributors to climate change which is becoming a major concern. Out of other
energy sources, the solar photovoltaic (PV) materials generate electron−hole pairs upon light
absorption in device architecture to generate electricity. The earth-abundant, non-toxic, and
low-cost quaternary alloys along with the perovskite materials have attracted significant
attention in recent years as potential alternatives. Our research activities range from
conceiving and creating new materials to the theoretical understanding of optoelectronic
process in devices. Currently, we are investigating the various important factors underlining
the device performance and solving the issues in numerous chalcogenide and perovskite
semiconductor based solar cells.
Cu2ZnGeSe4 Material: The CZGSe thin films were used to fabricate a PV cell with an
effective device area of 0.5 cm 2 . A schematic of the device architecture consisting of corning-
glass/Mo/CZGSe/CdS/i-ZnO/Al–ZnO/Ni–Al is shown in Figure. The fabricated device
exhibits a V oc of 0.69 V, fill factor (FF) of 37.15, a short-circuit current density (J sc ) of 17.12
mA/cm 2 , and a power conversion efficiency (η) of 4.4%.
Perovskite Material: Recently, we have reported the stabilized power conversion efficiency
of 16.78 % (small active area 0.3 × 0.3 cm 2 ) and 15.82 % (large active area 1 × 1 cm 2 ) under
100 mWcm -2 irradiation 5% Eu 2+ incorporation with QDs passivation in CsPbI 2 Br based
device. In one other project, the PCE of 17.45 % (under reverse scan) for small area (0.09
cm 2 ) was demonstrated with record open-circuit voltage (V OC ) of 1.334 V and fill factor (FF)
of 80.1% for fully air-processed dynamic hot-air assisted M:CsPbI 2 Br (M: Eu 2+ , In 3+ ) for
stable all-inorganic perovskite solar cells.