Combining traditional silicon with perovskite materials offers higher efficiency solar cells, but further innovation is needed to make them commercially viable.

The efficiency of tandem solar cells is boosted with improved optical design and a careful selection of the material that connects them together.

We are glad to announce that our team recently certified 33.2% power conversion efficiency for perovskite silicon tandem solar cells.

The KPV-Lab team recently held their traditional iftar dinner.

Sofiia Kosar, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, has joined KPV-LAB as a postdoctoral researcher.

KPV-Lab researcher showcased in-house developed high-efficiency solar cells at KROW.

We said goodbye to Waseem Raja in our last group meeting as he is joining ASML in the Netherlands soon.

TÜBİTAK's president Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal visited KAUST Solar Center and KPV-Lab and met with Turkish researchers.

Asmat Ullah joined KPV-Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Asmat will be working on hybrid perovskites, particularly focussing on the interfaces.

On December 15th we organized a special breakfast to dismiss the year 2022.

Our colleague Randi Azmi received the ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology, and Innovation Pioneer 2022 in South Korea by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

Our Research Scientist Dr. Erkan Aydin received the prestigious ERC (European Research Council), Starting Grant, with his project titled INPERSPACE. With this achievement, Dr. Aydin will return to Europe in 2023 to establish his research group.

Professor Stefaan De Wolf has been selected as one of the world's influential researchers by Clarivate in 2022.

Rakesh Pradhan is a PhD student working on KPV-LAB. His research focuses on insights towards passivation for enabling efficient scalable single junction PSC.

Suzana Kralj is a visiting student from the University of Twente, Netherlands. She will work with KPV-Lab for six months on the thermal evaporation of perovskite absorbers for perovskite/silicon tandem.

Andrea Zanetta will be visiting our laboratory for three months as a visiting student. He comes from the University of Pavia (Italy) where he is doing his Ph.D. Here he will be working on the development of low-dimensional perovskites for innovative solar cell architectures.

KPV-LAB members gathered a dinner to celebrate several events. We said goodbye to the intern and colleague Lorenzo Mardegan. At the same time, we welcomed former KPV-Lab member Michele De Bastiani for his short visit and three new visitings; Andrea Zanetta, Suzana Kralj, and Abdulrahman Alhussain.

Abdulrahman Alhussain is a visiting researcher from King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). He is working with us on encapsulating and measuring the thermal coefficient and stability of perovskite solar cells.

KPV-Lab members Stefaan De Wolf, Erkan Aydin, Esma Ugur, Waseem Raja, and Pia Dally attended the 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion which is organized in Milan, Italy.

We enjoyed the farewell dinner of Jiang Liu. We will miss you, and we will not forget your contributions to the outstanding achievements of our team. Our best wishes for great success in his new academic role.

Our colleague Jingxuan Kang defended his PhD thesis on the last 6th of September.

Helen joins us from the UK, where she completed her Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Subhashri is from India. She will work on the KPV-LAB Group for the next six months as a visiting student.

In recent work published in ACS, we develop a simple empirical model to acquire the temperature-dependent optical constants of perovskites of an arbitrary band gap using a dataset obtained from spectroscopic ellipsometry.

Xuechun is from China, and she will work on perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells during her PhD

Dr. Erkan Aydin and Dr. Esma Ugur represented the KPV-Lab with two different talks at PVCON which is organized by GUNAM (METU, Ankara-Turkiye)

Lorenzo is from Italy and he is coming from ICMOL (Spain) for the next four months.

Our recent work on perovskite/silicon tandem was published in Science. Click "read more" and we explain more about it.

Lujia Xu report 26.2%-efficient monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem single-cell solar modules with a short circuit current density of 18.6mA/cm2, enabled through enhanced optical design.

At the beginning of June, Dr. Erkan was invited to give a talk at the Institute of Molecular Science in Valencia (Spain).

Some members of our team were invited to participate in Tandem PV International Workshop organized at Freiburg (Germany) from May 30 to June 1.

The panel discussion brings researchers from the leading research institutes and companies to discuss the hot questions in the field.

Shanshan joins the KPV-Lab as a postdoctoral fellow and she will be developing novel, lossless, and mechanically stable contacts.

Pia Dally is currently a postdoctoral fellow at KAUST working on surface analysis techniques, XPS and UPS.

Congratulations, Wenbo! Wenbo defended his work "High-performance four-terminal perovskite/Si tandem devices". Our best wishes to a future colleague.

Badri Vishal brings his TEM expertise to the KPV-Lab team, aiming deeper understanding of the interfaces.

Utomo is from Korea. He will be part of the KPV-LAB Group for the next six months as a visiting student and majorly focussing on perovskite solar cells.

Vladyslav, from Ukraine, joined as an intern to the team. Vlad will be working on loss analysis on devices focussing on the interfaces.

Our Postdoctoral researcher Esma Ugur, is a new member of The Global Academy. This institution is a social enterprise where researchers and academics work internationally to make the world a better place.

Multilayered perovskite-based films, designed by Azmi et al., shield high-performance perovskite solar cells from extreme heat and moisture and boost their long-term stability, which marks a key milestone to device commercialization.

Our postdoctoral researcher Furkan H. Isikgor moved to the LAMA group to work on organic solar cells related projects. Congratulations!!!

The group celebrated a breakfast activity to gather all members. Also, the weather and the Red Sea views were fantastic.

We enjoyed the farewell dinner of Michele De Bastiani with the beautiful Red Sea view. We will miss you, and we will not forget your contributions to the outstanding achievements of our team. Our best wishes for your future, Michele

KPV-LAB team is being extended! Shruti Sarwade will be supporting our research activities with her chemistry background, and she will aid the team in several tasks.

Aren will bring his expertise on electro-optics of solar cells and strengthen our team towards more efficient solar cells.

Check out the recent publication in ACS Nano on the scalable deposition of #MXenes as a result of collaboration with Functional Nanomaterials & Devices and colleagues from KAUST Solar Center.

Our Research Scientist Dr. Erkan Aydin presented recent progresses of KPV-LAB in the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells field. If you missed the talk, you can watch the recording of the video from here!

Bumin joined us like a visiting student. Now he is studying at Kaust for the master of Materials Science & Engineering. Recently he started doing highly-efficient perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells.

Adi Prasetio comes from Indonesia. He visits KPV-LAB as a Visiting Student to conduct research on silicon heterojunction solar cells.

Francesco Toniolo is a new VSRP (Visiting Student Research Program). He will be visiting our lab for next six months. We have more open opportunities like this. Read more here https://kpv.kaust.edu.sa/join-us

For the next edition, Spring 2022, Prof. Stefaan De Wolf will be one of the organizers. Also, our colleague Michele De Bastiani will be an invited speaker.

Faisal AlJamaan received his MSc degree with his thesis titled "Investigating the Long-Term Operational Stability of Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells" after a successful defense.

During the first KAUST Research Open Week, our Ph.D. student Shynggys Zhumagali won the first prize for his poster presentation. Bravo Shynggys!

During the last week of November, Kaust organized the first Kaust Research Open Week. Along these days our group participated in several activities.

On the last 24 of November, our colleague Areej Alzahrani defended her thesis.

Prof. Stefaan De Wolf participates during COP26 in Glasglow (UK). His talk is about developing higher-efficiency and industry-optimized silicon-based solar cells.

Dr. Atteq ur Rehman and colleagues discuss the challenges and opportunities in scaling upfront metallization grid on perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells: such as limitations posed by the thermal stability of perovskites in the annealing process of industrially applicable screen-printed metallization techniques.

Behind the scene of smoothly working optoelectronics (e.g., PVs, LEDs), there are hidden technological problems; one of them is sputter damage. We elaborate on the rationale behind it and discuss the solutions in a Matter review.

Anil will empower the perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells team with his experience in scaling up the blade-coated perovskite solar cells.

Our postdoctoral researcher Atteq Ur Rehman is now part of the KSC Operations Team. Congratulations!!!

Luis Victor Torres is a PhD student. He arrived in Kaust in 2019 and studied for his master's degree with Prof. Derya Baran. His research interests are interface engineering on tandem solar cells, particularly interconnecting layers in monolithic tandem photovoltaics.

In the latest work, Dr. Waseem Raja and his colleagues develop a novel 3-D opto-electrical finite-element model to analyze the performance of ultrathin solar cells. Overall, the study shows how 3-D finite element modeling can aid in analyzing and developing new optical and electrical solar cell designs for ultra-thin solar cells such as those based on chalcogenides and perovskites.

In collaboration with LAMA, OMEGA, CPMS, and UFD groups of KAUST, we have shown that phenformin hydrochloride (PhenHCl), a multifunctional molecule that plugs various atomic-scale defects in perovskite solar materials, can significantly boost the longevity and electrical output of perovskite-based solar cells.

In his latest work, Dr. De Bastiani led the KPVLAB team, in collaboration with the University of Toronto and the EPFL, through a six-month outdoor performance study of bifacial perovskite/silicon tandems in the sunny and humid desert of Saudi Arabia.

Rayan Albraidi visits KPV-LAB via KGSP Internship Program in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, California (US).

Dr. Erkan Aydin and his colleagues from KPV-LAB built an n-i-p monolithic tandem solar cell with a power conversion efficiency of 27%, beating out the previous best-reported value of 22% in the same configuration.

Do not miss the opportunity to join us as a postdoctoral fellow for perovskite-based solar cells research! The position is immediately available.

This review addresses the current progress in photon recycling in PSCsfollowed by analysis the various light-trapping strategies and device architectures that could yield efficient photon recycling in PSCs.

Akmaral is focussing on the development of large-area perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, and she will find a chance at KPV-LAB to extend her knowledge as a Postdoctoral fellow.

Mohammed Alamer is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Wisconsin, Madison (US). Currently, he is doing his KGSP internship at KPV-Lab.

Ohoud K. Alharbi is a MS student working in first-principles calculations and simulations with Prof. Udo Schwingenschlögl. Now, she joins KPV-LAB as a visiting student. Welcome, Ohoud!

Ahmed's expertise lies in organic charge transport layers, and he will find a chance at KPV-LAB to extend his knowledge to scalable devices as a Postdoctoral fellow.

On the past 6th of May, the group celebrated an Iftar dinner. The place and the company were very nice.

Dr. Erkan Aydin won the best poster presentation at the 1st International Tandem PV Workshop. See more details ...

We have new work titled " Heat generation and mitigation in silicon solar cells and modules " published in Joule. Read more

After a hard year, most of the members of the group could join a delicious breakfast with a view of the Red Sea.

Do not miss the chance to be part of KPV-LAB for cutting-edge solar cell research! Apply now 📝

Our recent review on tin oxide electron selective materials came out in Advanced Materials. To learn more, check out the detail of the news.

Fuzong Xu's study on KSCN additive for slot-die coated MAPbI3 films enables 11 μm grains and 25.15 μm charge carrier diffusion length. On thick films, the scalable solar cells achieve 21.38% PCE with negligible hysteresis.

Fuzong Xu joins KPV-LAB as a Ph.D. student. He will conduct research at KSC on high-efficiency perovskite based tandem solar cells.

Our work entitled "Efficient bifacial monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells via bandgap engineering" is now online in Nature Energy!

Maxime Babics is currently a postdoctoral fellow at KAUST working on scaling-up efficient and stable tandem devices. His research interest are silicon heterojunction solar cells, perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, scalable photovoltaics, and organic interlayers

Check out our recent publication in Advanced Materials Technologies with collaboration with the University of Twente and collaborators from TNO/Solliance.

Do not miss the chance to join our team to develop highly-efficient, large-area, mechanically-stacked perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells! Share this in your network. Application Deadline: January 31st. Apply now!

Wenbo is a Master Student with Stefaan's group. His research at KSC is perovskite solar cell and fabricating technique.

The Al-Khwarizmi Graduate Fellowship scheme invites applications for doctoral fellowships, with the submission deadline of 22 January 2021, 17:00 CET.

Ainul joined KPV-LAB in September 2020 as a visiting student and he works on the development of novel buffer layers in perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells.

Bumin joined KPV-LAB as a visiting student in September 2020 and he is currently working on perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells.

Dr. Erkan Aydin and colleagues report 19.8 mA cm-2 current density values for perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells in Nature Energy.

Take a chance to learn more about PV technologies we develop at KPV-LAB aimed at powering the Circular Carbon Economy with the sun by visiting our booth at Expo at KAUST (Dec. 1-2).

Arsalan has recently moved to KAUST joining Prof. Stefaan De Wolf’s group at KAUST Solar Center as a postdoctoral fellow.​​

Randi has research interests with high-efficiency perovskite single junction devices and perovskite/silicon tandem devices.

Esma has recently finished her PhD with Prof. Frédéric Laquai. Now she is joining Prof. Stefaan De Wolf’s group at KAUST Solar Center as a postdoctoral fellow.​​

https://ksc.kaust.edu.sa/pages/newsletter-2020-2.aspx

Dr. Aydin and colleagues' study on the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells takes place on the cover of the November issue of Nature Energy journal.

We performed outdoor field testing of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells in a sunny climate and found that the ideal bandgap of the perovskite absorber in the perovskite/silicon tandems should be lower than previously predicted values, which is good news to fabricate phase-stable perovskites.

Dr. Subbiah's recent study in ACS Energy Letters demonstrates the promise of slot-die coating for scale-up of perovskite solar cells in both single and multi-junction applications.

A recent study by Dr. Jiang Liu came out in the recent issue of ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces report molecular doping of hole transport materials which improves the performance and stability of the perovskite solar cell. To read more check out the publication!

KPV-LAB's publications draw huge attention in the perovskite community and they are listed among the top 10% of most downloaded papers in Advanced Materials and Advanced Electronic Materials.

Emerging perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells are showing better performances on textured silicon bottom cells. On these devices, conformal coated sputtered nickel oxide hole transport layers promise highly-efficient tandems. To learn more, read the recent technology review by Dr. Erkan Aydin from KPV-LAB.

Dr. Waseem Raja has a strong background in numerical analysis and computational modeling for estimating the performance of the next-generation solar cells, plasmonic nanostructure-based photocatalysis devices, and LEDs.

Mechanically stacked tandems still hold great potential. Check out our collaborative study with Sargent Group reporting lab-scale 28.2% perovskite/silicon tandems with 19% semitransparent top cells published in Nature Communications.

Our team in a collaboration with Sargent Group grew thick films of perovskite with a bandgap of ∼1.68 electron volts and used a passivant, 1-butanethiol, to limit its phase separation. The tandem cells had a certified power conversion efficiency of 25.7% and had negligible losses after 400 hours of operation.

KPV-LAB people met at lunch to say goodbye to Alessandro and welcome Francesco Furlan.

KPV-LAB offers students the chance to conduct innovative research at KAUST. With research opportunities that span the breadth of the photovoltaics field, driven students with an insatiable curiosity and strong academic performance can gain unparalleled opportunities to pursue their research questions under the guidance and support of KPV-LAB members.

KPV-LAB people gathered for new year lunch. Happy new year to everyone!

The Red Sea is, in particular, one of the best snorkeling destinations in the world. KPV-LAB members are enjoying the beauties of the Red Sea.

Prof. Stefaan De Wolf is included in Web of Science’s Highly Cited Researchers 2019 annual list for the first time.

A touch of zirconium to better catch the sun: Zirconium-doped transparent electrodes boost the power conversion efficiency of perovskite-based tandem solar cells.

At KPV-LAB Simone will focus on the optimization of spray coating deposition for perovskite-silicon tandem applications

​Recent breakthroughs in the way silicon solar cells can be made suggest the face of the industry-dominating technology could be changing. The new discoveries are outlined in a paper.

​Dr. Erkan Aydin's technology review on "Defect and Contact Passivation for Perovskite Solar Cells" takes places in the last issue of KSC Newsletter

KPV-LAB members gathered at a dinner to say goodbye to interns and visitors.​ Francesco Furlan who is a VSRP intern, Jorge Avila Gomez who is a visiting scientist from the University of Valencia, and Salman Aboud and Rawan Jalmood are finalizing their visits.

In the meantime, we say welcome to our new VSRP interns Alessandro Mirabelli and Shingis Zhumagali.

Changes in the composition are shown to affect light-harvesting layer crystallization and perovskite solar cell efficiency.

​KPV-LAB hosts two summer school students for silicon solar activities​: Salman and Rawan.

The role of cation and halide mixing is revealed using in situ X‐ray scattering measurements during spin‐coating. Modulating the cation/halide composition directly impacts the lifetime of the sol–gel precursor film and its easy and reproducible conversion to the perovskite phase to yield solar cells with 20% power conversion efficiency.

​Jorge Avila from Prof. Henk Bolink's Group joins KPV-LAB as a visiting researcher. Welcome Jorge!​

• Reveal phase segregation in mixed-halide perovskite films via in situ observation
• Cs+ and Rb+ additions dictate the crystallization pathways and solar cell performance
• Direct formation of perovskite phase is beneficial in minimizing halide segregation​​

This paper envision a future with ∼10 TW of PV by 2030 and 30 to 70 TW by 2050, providing a majority of global energy. PV would be not just a key contributor to electricity generation but also a central contributor to all segments of the global energy system. Ramifications and challenges for complementary technologies (e.g., energy storage, power to gas/liquid fuels/chemicals, grid integration, and multiple sector electrification) are discussed.

Anand has recently moved to KAUST from India, joining Prof. Stefaan De Wolf’s group at KAUST Solar Center as a postdoctoral fellow.​​

The small organic molecule (2‐(1,10‐phenanthrolin‐3‐yl)naphth‐6‐yl)diphenylphosphine oxide is explored as cathode interfacial material to reduce the extraction barrier between phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid methyl ester and Ag. With the better contact quality thanks to this molecule, both opaque and semitransparent p‐i‐n perovskite solar cell achieve improved performance and stability.

​Dr. Erkan Aydin, Dr. Michele De Bastiani and Prof. Stefaan De Wolf reviewed "Defect and Contact Passivation for Perovskite Solar Cells" in Advanced Materials. This comprehensive review explains the origin of the various voltage‐limiting mechanisms in PSCs, and possible mitigation strategies with decent examples from literature.

​Jingxuan Kang succesfully defended his M.Sc. thesis. Cogratulations!

In this study, Xinbo Yang coworkers report an electron-conductive, hole-blocking contact based on titanium nitride (TiN) deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering.

​In this study, Dr. Erkan Aydin and coworkers show the excellent properties of Zr‐doped indium oxide (IZRO) transparent electrodes for such applications, with improved near‐infrared (NIR) response, compared to conventional tin‐doped indium oxide (ITO) electrodes, are shown. By doing so, the team is reporting 26.2% PCE for four‐terminal perovskite/silicon tandem devices with an absolute 3.5 mA cm−2 short‐circuit current improvement in silicon bottom cells.

​Francesco Furlan joins to KPV-LAB perovskite solar cells team as a VSRP student

This study reveals the temperature dependence of absorption spectra for methylammonium lead iodide with specific attention for its sub-bandgap
absorption edge (often referred to as Urbach energy).

​KPV-LAB researchers have recently published in ACS Nano with a collaboration of Javey Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley. ​​

​This study reports the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory to investigate the surface defect and metal-induced gap state density of silicon in close contact with metals (Al and Ag).

​KPV-LAB welcomes Yifan Dang as a visiting student in silicon solar cells team.​

​Learn about the latest research results from KPV-LAB at the 2018 MRS Fall Meeting

​Charge accumulation at the electron and hole transport layers generates anomalous electrical behavior in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Hysteresis in the current-voltage characteristic and recombination at the interfaces are the clearest manifestations of this phenomenon, which compromises device performance and stability. In this study, we explained the underlying charge‐carrier dynamics of a hysteresis observed and hysteresis-free PSCs by analyzing their transient photocurrent response. ​

​The Eni Award aims to reflect the importance of scientific research and innovation, promoting a better use of energy sources and encouraging a new generation of researchers. The award is an international point of reference for research in the energy and environment sectors.​​​​​​​

​​Furkan recently joined Prof. Stefaan de Wolf’s group as a postdoctoral fellow.

​KPV-LAB introduces new Visiting Students Research Program (VSRP) projects.

Jiang's current research interests include the development of high-efficiency perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, perovskite solar cells based on novel materials including evaporation processing, interface passivation, and advanced characterization.​​

​KPV-LAB researchers developed a room temperature sputtered Nickel oxide (NiOx) hole transport thin films which can be used for perovskite solar cells, perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, organic solar cells which employs low-temperature resilience substrates.​

The efficiency of solar cells can be increased by thin-film contacts developed by researchers at KAUST.​

​KPV-LAB members are joining PSCO-2018 Conference at Lausanne​

​Thanks to PMMA: PCBM Double-side passivation, very high‐efficiency (≈20.8%) perovskite cells with some of the highest open circuit voltages (1.22 V) reported for the same 1.6 eV bandgap are demonstrated.

KPV-LAB researchers fabricated the first silicon heterojunction solar cells at KAUST Solar Center with impressive start of >20%.​​

​High-efficiency silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells (Fig. 1), which use a crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer as an optical absorber and thin-film layers to form their electrical contacts, have the potential to gain a substantial share in the commercial photovoltaic (PV) market in the future. Currently, the world-record efficiency of 26.7 % is achieved with SHJ technology by placing both contacts in an interdigitated back-contact design. The KAUST Photovoltaics (KPV) Lab, led by Prof. Stefaan De Wolf, which is part of the KAUST Solar Center (KSC), is dedicated to the development of high-efficiency silicon-based solar cells, using SHJ solar cells as a core technology, and to tailoring such solar cells specifically for use in hot and sunny climates.

Thomas Allen​ reviewed passivating contacts which is enabling progress towards the efficiency limits of the silicon solar cells. ​

​Indeotec Octopus PECVD-PVD Cluster enables the fabrication of silicon heterojunction cells on the 6-inch wafers.​

Tantalum Nitride has been used for the first time as a passivating contact on silicon solar cells.​

​KAUST Solar Center has a New Milestone​: KPV-LAB researchers have recently achieved >20% efficiency for perovskite solar cells

Xinbo Yang's paper selected as a front cover in journal of "Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications"