Knowledge-Based PV

The IMD-3 has two primary research strategies, when it comes to the characterization and simulation of photovoltaic materials and devices. These two strategies are based on the two extremes of studying either few samples in-depth or many samples in a high throughput mode. Both approaches have to complement each other. The Knowledge-Based PV department focusses on the in-depth methods, where we try to get a physics-based understanding of materials and devices that can serve the teams working on technology development in their quest to make rapid progress in the efficiency and stability of photovoltaic devices. Within the deparment, there are three teams focussing on different families of characterization techniques that include optical spectroscopy (primarily based on photoluminescence), electrical or optoelectronic spectroscopy (primarily based on transient and frequency domain methods applied to complete devices) and surface physics (photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning probe methods).