Nano-Carbon Solar Cells and Applications

December 03, 2018 [Monday] @ 15:00 Dr. Moshe Mahrize (Novel Carbon) will give a talk on

“Nano-Carbon Solar Cells and Applications”.

Abstract

The solar world consists of organic and inorganic materials: silicon, CIGS, CdTe, organic, dye-sensitized, perovskites, quantum dots etc. Even though silicon has been leading the solar market for many years, the world is looking for more environmentally friendly materials that are cheaper, more efficient and abundant. Carbon structures in the past decade have been the focus of attention as a good candidate and intensively studied. Carbon stands alone in Nature forming variable structures that are cheaper, abundant and environmentally friendlier. The two dominant carbon structures are graphite and diamond crystals with contrasting physical properties. Thin films produced from both structures are amorphous and can be used for physical protection with competitive physical and optical properties but insulating electronic properties. The prevailing understanding over the last 30 years of the mechanism of formation of amorphous films has been based on assumptions and indirect experimental results. Neither a good nor even an adequate atomic-level model has been available up to now for theoretical simulation and matching with experimental results. Nano-technology allows producing defects in pure atomic semi-insulating carbon structure monolayers behaving as semiconductors. These nano-defects in carbon structure result in variable band gap for multi-junction (tandem) carbon solar cells (patented). Photons that cross the junctions in a device do not encounter different interface in multilayer’s barrier (scattering, absorption) which allows to achieve high efficiency. Nanocarbon solar devices with these features have a number of advantages such as transparency, flexibility and low weight, allowing for large spectrum of consumer’s energy applications.

Place: Holon Institute of Technology, Faculty of Sciences, Seminar Room 424/8.

(Light refreshments will be served at 14:45)

Directions: Google Map