Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWMIn the Fraunhofer flagship project “MaNiTU,” six Fraunhofer institutes collaborated to develop sustainable, highly efficient and cost-effective tandem solar cells based on new absorber materials.
Materials for sustainable tandem solar cells with maximum conversion efficiency
Completed research project
Project description
The efficiency of silicon solar cells has reached a plateau. Researchers can overcome the physical limits with tandem solar cells. With them, efficiencies exceeding 35 percent are possible. Tandem solar cells are therefore the focus of current solar cell research. This is where the MaNiTU flagship project came in, developing highly efficient and cost-effective tandem solar cells based on perovskite absorber materials in combination with silicon.
Through the close integration of theoretical modeling and experimental work on absorber and contact layers, the project team understood interfacial effects and leveraged them specifically to achieve desired functionalities. By the end of the project, the team demonstrated stability and high efficiencies at the module level.
Fraunhofer IWM Work Packages:
Quantum mechanical and atomistic simulations were used to predict the electronic, optical and structural properties of potential absorber materials and to analyze and optimize material interfaces - such as those between the absorber layers of a tandem cell - at the atomic level.
Fraunhofer IWM made a significant contribution to systematically guiding the search for optimal materials combinations for tandem solar cells, identifying defect mechanisms and degradation processes at interfaces and deriving materials-based design rules for stable, highly efficient tandem structures.
Based on this project work, Fraunhofer IWM can offer industrial companies the following new R&D services:
- Computational Materials Screening for Photovoltaic Materials
Companies in the PV industry can use the simulation methods developed at Fraunhofer IWM to rapidly evaluate new absorber materials and materials combinations virtually. - Atomistic interface analysis and optimization
Fraunhofer IWM optimizes materials interfaces for manufacturers of thin-film and tandem solar cells, enabling the early identification of degradation mechanisms and targeted improvement of the long-term stability of multilayer systems. - Multiscale Modeling for Functional Layer Systems
The methods for modeling absorber materials and interfaces tested in this project are directly transferable to other application areas where the properties of thin-film and multilayer systems need to be optimized.