Simulation of Film Morphologies in Printable Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics is a key technology for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond well-established silicon solar-cells, new promising technologies have been developed recently, in particular solution-processed organic and perovskite solar cells. However, the efficiency and lifetime of these device still have to be improved in order to reach significant market shares.

One of the challenges for further optimization is to rationalize the impact of the processing conditions on the subtle nanomorphology forming during the fabrication of the photoactive layers. Our ambition is to contribute to the understanding of the process-structure relationship for printed organic and perovskite solar cells from a theoretical perspective.

We develop and use simulation methods gathering the main physical processes that drive the morphology formation in solution-processed PV. The overarching goal is the determination of physically based design rules for a fast and efficient identification of optimal processing conditions regarding solar cells efficiency and stability, and a fast transposition of processing routes upon scale-up.