Craig Schwartz and colleagues (Nevada Extreme Conditions Lab) were recently awarded two grants from the Department of Energy:
1.) Next generation solar cells probed at the interface with exceptional precision (PIE): Towards new device design – Summary: Generating solar energy via photovoltaic (PV) devices is one of the most promising routes for clean energy, but PV materials can still be expensive and have not reached peak efficiency. In recent years, lead halide perovskites have been hailed as revolutionary for PV materials because they are cheaper and simpler to manufacture than traditional silicon panels and maintain a very high efficiency. How devices made with lead halide perovskites work remains a mystery to a large extent; therefore, improving them has proven challenging. This proposal will use a technique recently developed by UNLV scientists at the world’s largest, brand new, billion-dollar X-ray laser to better understand how these devices work, which will inform strategies for improving the stability and performance of lead halide perovskite-based devices. The award is $738,000 over three years starting September 2022.
2.) Probing interfacial electron dynamics (PIED) – A multimodal study to advance solar photochemistry – Summary: Solar energy does not occur at night or during inclement weather, so to solve this, humans have traditionally used batteries to store the generated energy; nature, on the other hand, overcomes this problem by storing solar energy in a chemical format. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices imitate nature and directly couple solar energy into solar-fuel production within a single device made of several layers of materials that each play a role. PEC devices are currently of limited efficiency and durability, with losses/failures at the different interfaces between the device’s layers being one of their major limitations. This proposal will leverage the world’s most powerful X-ray lasers in Japan, Italy, Germany, and California to study the interfaces in PEC devices to understand and develop PEC devices which last longer and generate more solar fuel per hour. The award is $1.3 million over three years starting September 2022.
