University of Luxembourg – Physics and Materials Science Dept: Photovoltaics
University of Luxembourg – Physics and Materials Science Dept: Photovoltaics
Core business
Photovoltaics, semiconductor physics, polycrystalline thin film solar cells, defects in semiconductorsThe Laboratory for Photovoltaics (LPV) works on new materials for solar cells.
We focus on two issues:
- The development of new structures and processes to improve the efficiency of thin film solar cells and
- The fundamental materials physics of novel semiconductors used as absorbers in these devices.
We concentrate on chalcopyrites (Cu(InGa)Se 2 CIGS) and related materials. These semiconductors and devices are interesting from the application point of view as well as from a fundamental physics perspective.
Thin film solar cells are considered the next generation of photovoltaics because of their enormous cost reduction potential which is based on the greatly reduced consumption of material and energy. Among the currently available technologies solar cells based on chalcopyrite absorbers show the highest efficiencies.
We study the electronic structure of semiconductor films and devices by a wide range of opto-electronic spectroscopies. We apply these technique to the challenges inherent of thin film devices with grain boundaries and the dominance of interfaces. The defect physics of chalcopyrites poses additional interesting problems, based on the ternary nature of the material and the low formation energy of native defects.
Products & services
- development of thin film solar cells
- defect spectroscopy in semiconductor films and devices
Major Materials & Manufacturing projects
- novel semiconductors for solar cells (Cu-rich Cu(InGa)Se2)
- new wide band gap solar cells for tandem applications
- optical detection of deep defects
Technical / technological capabilities
- Preparation: MBE and MOVPE
- Complete solar cell baseline
- Device characterisation
- Optical transmission/reflection
- Photoluminescence (temperature, intensity and spatially resolved)
- Capacitance spectroscopy
- Hall measurement
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Main customers / collaborations
- IEE
- FNR
- various EU programmes
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