Advances in architecturing of large-scale photovoltaics: packaging and incidence angle agnostic hierarchical nanostructures

includes bibliographical references and index

PhD; 2023; Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research

Encapsulant of Graphene embedded polymer that exhibits low permeability to moisture and oxygen were used as a packaging material for OPVDs. Graphene-Surlyn encapsulated and unencapsulated devices were stored both in ambient and inert conditions to evaluate the performance of the encapsulant material. The devices with encapsulation and stored inside the glove box exhibited 88% of the initial performance after more than 50000 hours of real-time ageing. These results demonstrate an enormous increase in the lifetime of the devices, paving the way for robust and long-life OPV devices. Hierarchically nanostructured coatings (HNC), crucial for adequate light trapping and enhancing the capacity of silicon solar cells to convert light into energy, provide the potential for better photon management. To absorb light from virtually any angle, an effort is made to emulate the biomimetic design of a particular type of insect. We coated the HNC to polycrystalline silicon solar cells (epoxy) using a thermosetting polymer and the PDMS stamping technique. The hierarchically built solar cell outperformed solar cells made of bare silicon by around 25% in terms of power production at a maximum angle of incidence of 41.53°. The hierarchically formed solar cell might replace the demand for tracking-based solar panels. Superior optoelectronic properties are embraced by this self-assembled HNC method for a range of solar cell applications. The HNC on silicon solar cells was performed on larger (1m x 2m) panels to assess the scalability of these structures. The performance improvement of the panels was ~80% of that of the small-scale version, with ~20% enhancement in the cumulative power generation throughout the day. To tune the optical losses caused by refractive index mismatch and spectrum conversion from the IR to the visible area, which can be a potential rival in silicon photovoltaics, this work has included both HNC and up-conversion material (NaYF4:Yb/Er). Infrared light absorbers and green, blue, and red light emitters are two functions of the rare-earth-doped up-conversion nanoparticles employed in this thesis. When subjected to constant IR irradiation for 15 days, the integration of NaYF4:Yb/Er up-conversion nanoparticles decreased the temperature of the cells by a margin of around 20%. A 32% increase in power output over reference solar cells was also discovered.