Achievement

A cross-disciplinary collaboration leverages the expertise of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry groups in the fields of nanocrystal-based solar cells and scanning optical microscopy. This work has led to the development of an optical microscopy-based approach at characterizing the performance of solar cells on the nano and micro length scales and by using that technique we have gained specific fundamental understanding of the properties of a promising solar cell technology based on solution-processed Cu(In1-xGax)Se2 (CIGS) nanocrystals. The information gained from this work has directly contributed to a six-fold increase (from 0.5% to over 3%) in the power conversion efficiency of solar cell devices in the last year.