Qi Fan
Michigan State University, MI·Engineering
Perovskite solar cells, a newer type of solar cell, now turn more than 25% of sunlight into electricity. Making them efficiently at scale is still difficult.
- Fields
Engineering
Materials Science
Physics
- Topics
perovskite solar cells
photovoltaics
transparent conductive oxide
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Test the hypothesis that low-energy ion bombardment acts as atomic-scale local heating, allowing polycrystalline, highly conductive and transparent oxide films such as ITO to grow at room temperature.
- Simulate the coupled ion beam source and magnetron sputtering discharges with self-consistent particle-in-cell Monte Carlo methods to find the energies of ions and sputtered atoms.
- Build a model of how ion-film and ion-target interactions reinforce each other, and relate plasma parameters to the microstructure, conductivity and optical transmittance of the resulting films.
- Demonstrate high-efficiency perovskite solar cells with transparent top electrodes deposited at room temperature by ion-beam-enhanced soft sputtering.
More about the research
Their top electrode is a thin transparent film of conductive oxide, such as indium-tin-oxide (ITO), about 100 nanometers thick, that collects current while letting light through. The perovskite layer beneath it is damaged by heat, so the film must be deposited at room temperature. However, the standard industrial method, magnetron sputtering, produces disordered (amorphous) films at room temperature. These films conduct electricity poorly and let less light through, which limits cell efficiency.
Why it matters
Better transparent electrodes deposited at room temperature could remove a key barrier to the efficiency of perovskite solar cells. This could help solar manufacturers produce cheaper, higher-performing clean-energy devices. The plasma processing knowledge gained could also benefit other industries that deposit thin films using magnetron sputtering.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Chonglin Zhang
University of North Dakota, ND·Engineering
Develop accurate, scalable algorithms for particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations on unstructured meshes, which are flexible grids that fit complex device geometries, targeting GPU-accelerated supercomputers.
Heayoung Yoon
University of Utah, UT·Materials Science·Early-career
Visualize local defects such as mobile ions and charge carrier dynamics in metal halide perovskites during degradation and recovery, using electron-beam and near-field optical probes inside a scanning electron microscope.
Sigrid Elschot
Stanford University, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how meteoroids deposit mass in the thermosphere and create localized regions of dense extraterrestrial material, using a new combined Direct Simulation Monte Carlo – Finite Element Method (DSMC-FEM) model of meteoroid material loss.
The school
Michigan State University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 555 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.