The Extremely Thin Absorber-layer (ETA) solar cell is a relatively new PV configuration. In materials viewpoint, there are a large number of semiconductor materials available that are suitable to employ in ETA cell configuration. Most of them are yet to be tested in ETA cell. The first part of the project will be aimed at screening semiconductor material combinations to find out novel material combinations (high band gap n-type semiconductor/low band gap light absorbing semiconductor/high band gap p-type semiconductor) for ETA cells. This will be done by aligning the band gap and band edges of semiconductors. The next part of the project is the construction of the integrated ALD and CVD deposition system. The main advantage of constructing this deposition system is that it will give us the capability of depositing conformal layers of light absorbing low band gap semiconductor materials on high aspect ratio of microstructures. The system will also be capable of deposition of pin-hole free compact layers and deposition of p-type high band gap semiconductors on high aspect ratio microstructures. Initially, a compact high band gap metal oxide semiconductor thin film will be deposited on FTO substrates using spray pyrolysis (to be used as a blocking layer). For the comparison the integrated deposition system will also be employed to make compact blocking layers. Then a microstructured porous film of the same high band gap semiconductor will be deposited on the compact layer. For this, a suitable deposition method will be selected from a range of methods (i.e. screen printing of sol-gel colloid, doctor-blading of sol-gel colloid, template assisted electrodeposition, spray pyrolysis). Then a conformal layer of light absorbing semiconductor material (i.e. CuInS2, Bi2S3, Cu2S, In2S3) will be deposited by using the integrated ALD and CVD deposition system. A high band gap p-type semiconductor (i.e. CuI, CuCNS, CuAlO2) will be deposited on the conformal layer by a suitable method (i.e. spray pyrolysis, dip coating, electrodeposition, integrated ALD/CVD method, or a combination of these methods). This will follow the deposition of a Au back contact. The completed cells will be characterised by a range of techniques (i.e. photocurrent spectroscopy, steady-state current-voltage plots, intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy and charge extraction technique) to study the limiting factors of cells. The resulting information will be fed into cell fabrication in order to improve light harvesting efficiency, photovoltage, and overall conversion efficiency. The project will be carried out by a postdoctoral research assistant who has the necessary skills over a period of three years. He will be supported by a dedicated PhD student (fully-funded by the Faculty of Science, Loughborough University) throughout the project. Regular meetings will be held with our industrial partners (Bac2 Ltd and PolySolar Ltd). The keen interest of industrial partners and their regular input is a key advantage for the project. Based on this work, new ideas, collaborations, and interdisciplinary projects will emerge and further funding will be applied for. In overall, the project will bring new capabilities to UK next generation solar cell research.

The harvesting of sunlight has the potential to revolutionize the way mankind generates electricity. At present however, only a small fraction (0.02% in 2008) of the world's total electrical power is generated using sunlight. Photovoltaic (PV) installations based on crystalline silicon are an increasingly popular way of generating electricity from solar-radiation, however such installations suffer from a relatively long pay-back time resulting from their high cost of manufacture. There is thus growing interest in the development photovoltaics based on organic (polymeric) materials (OPV) that can in principle be produced at low-cost, over very large areas utilizing solution-based processes that do not require a large energy input. At present however, even the best lab-based OPVs have an efficiency that is significantly lower than that of standard crystalline silicon (~8% compared with ~18%), coupled with a relatively short operational lifetime - attributes that have partly precluded their commercialization. There is nevertheless great interest in exploring the scale-up of OPVs, despite the fact that no common consensus has been reached on the best route to deposit multilayer architectures at high-speed. This problem is compounded by the fact that many of the materials that have the highest efficiency in OPV devices often have rather low solubility; properties that limit their application in high-speed manufacture processes. Addressing these issues lies at the heart of our proposed research. Firstly, we will engineer the chemical structure of state-of-the-art low energy-gap donor polymers to significantly improve their solubility and processability. We will then explore the deposition of such materials into OPVs using spray-based techniques. The thin-films formed will be characterized using high-resolution electron microscopy together with X-ray and neutron-scattering. The project team we have assembled for this task have leading expertise in organic-electronics, polymer-synthesis, polymer-physics and practical manufacturing processes. Our project is significantly strengthened by funds from the European Regional Development Fund (Project Mercury) to purchase an automated aerosol deposition system and fund postdoctoral and postgraduate researchers. We have ready route for commercialization via our (unfunded) links with a TSB-funded project that intends to develop OPVs for transparent window-glass applications. We anticipate the outcome of our work will be a materials set and a scalable process for high speed OPV manufacture.We will gain impact for our work through showcasing scaled-up OPV devices at the Sheffield Solar Farm and by interacting with artists and designers who wish to use organic photovoltaics in their work. We will also gain valuable support and publicity for our work through 'Project Sunshine'; a flagship project at Sheffield that promotes research into the utilization of solar energy to solve problems related to mankind's growing energy-needs and food-production in a time of growing climate uncertainty.

The contribution of PV energy to the electric grid continues to grow. Installed capacity in the UK in 2020 was 13.4 GW, (4.1% of total electricity generation compared with only 0.01% in 2010) and is expected to increase to 40 GW by 2030. Accelerating adoption of solar energy will present significant challenges to the electricity transmission and distribution system, as solar power is not dispatchable and therefore its incorporation as a major element of the generation mix requires the accurate estimation of solar energy production. The accurate estimation/prediction of solar energy generation is a significant challenge, especially in countries with widely varying weather patterns such as the UK, due to a poor understanding of the complex distribution of solar energy in the sky. Solar radiation is intermittent and the solar source at any given position on the plane of a PV array is highly dependent on the position of the sun, atmospheric aerosol levels, cloud cover and motion, etc. This inherent variability in the solar source directly affects solar-derived energy fed into power grids and can create severe imbalances between demand and the capacity/transport/distribution/storage of the grid, which can significantly impair grid reliability. To counter these issues, the long-term aim is to develop a comprehensive digital platform for forecasting solar production (from very short to long term solar radiation forecasting) to significantly improve the prediction accuracy of meteorological parameters, reducing the power mismatch caused by solar forecast errors, and also reducing the continuing requirement for fossil fuel-based generation. To achieve this, the aim for this project is to build on our existing outdoor solar testing facility to significantly improve the prediction accuracy for intra-hour solar forecasting by developing and demonstrating a 'cloud'-based solar measurement and modelling platform to support multiple data sources and intensive prediction algorithms. The target is to achieve a prediction horizon of 20s to 1 hour with temporal resolution of 10s.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution and UK's strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires establishing efficient energy scavenging technologies that can be utilised to power small electronic devices for sensing, processing and communicating data. The development of such technologies is essential for supporting modern societal needs in ubiquitous computing and AI. At the same time however, it becomes of vital importance that such technologies are built with environmentally friendly (green) approaches, taking into account the entire life cycle of the product - from raw materials and manufacturing to end-of-life. It is thus important to minimise as much as possible the use of toxic materials and chemicals, as well as develop procedures without the need to utilise equipment that consume huge amounts of energy. A key example is the Si photovoltaics industry that employs toxic chemicals in their production that are not easy to be recycled. It has been estimated that by 2050, over 60 million tons of waste will be generated from silicon solar panels alone. The aim of this fellowship is to develop novel self-powered electronic technologies, without the need to be operated by batteries; all developed with green materials and low-energy manufacturing techniques. Along these lines, I will use organic semiconductors (OSCs) that allow developing high-performance photovoltaic cells without resourcing to toxic materials. When compared to alternative conventional materials used in PVs my approach will allow for easy processing, low-cost manufacturing and attaining high performance. This will entail appropriate device engineering and material's processing strategies for prototyping high performing OPVs on rigid and flexible substrates. In parallel, I will develop low power consuming electronic components such as, sensors and supercapacitors, from green solvents and materials, in order to couple them with OPVs. Operation of such electronics will be mainly attained via light illumination, for outdoor and indoor conditions that will be exploited in a variety of practical applications. The overarching vision of this fellowship is to establish a new pathway in the IoT industry, enabling the use of such technologies in hard-to-reach areas, wearables and disposable biosensing platforms.