The Unprecedented Promise of Perovskite Photovoltaics
CME Department Seminar
October 6, 2023
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Presenter: Nitin P. Padture, PhD, Brown University
Abstract: Perovskite solar cells (PSCs), a burgeoning thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology, offers unprecedented promise of low-cost, high-efficiency renewable electricity generation. Metal-halide perovskite (MHP) light-absorbers at the heart of PSCs have unique crystal structures, which entail rotating organic cations inside inorganic cages, imparting them with highly desirable optical and optoelectronic properties. However, stability and mechanical reliability are becoming 'bottleneck' challenges in PSCs. This is because the low formation-energies of MHPs that make them easy to solution-process into thin films at near room-temperature also make them unstable and mechanically fragile. To address some of these technical hurdles in the path towards PSCs commercialization, several rationally-designed microstructural and interfacial tailoring approaches are used. These include grain-coarsening, grain-boundary functionalization, and interfacial engineering using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). Most importantly, these approaches are designed to not only enhance the PSCs’ mechanical reliability but also increase efficiency and improve stability simultaneously. The scientific rationales for these approaches are discussed, together with the presentation of current results, in the context of the unprecedented promise offered by perovskite PVs.
Speaker Bio: Nitin P. Padture is the Otis E. Randall University Professor in the School of Engineering, and founding director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy, at Brown University. Previously he served as director of Brown’s Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation for eight years. Prior to January 2012, he was College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University (OSU), and also founding director of NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at OSU. Padture’s research and teaching interests are in the broad areas of advanced ceramics, semiconductors, and nanomaterials used in applications ranging from jet engines to solar cells. He has 280 publications to his credit, which have been widely cited (Google Scholar h-index 93), and he has presented 270 invited/keynote/plenary talks in the US and abroad. Padture is fellow of the American Ceramic Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Materials Research Society. His recent awards include Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award and Brown’s Presidential Faculty Award. He is editor of two top journals in the field of materials science and engineering: Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia.
Date posted
Oct 16, 2023
Date updated
Oct 16, 2023