This image shows a visualization of the calculated exciton transfer from an upper tetracene layer of a solar cell to the silicon substrate. The electron is shown in blue, and the electron hole in red. Image credit: Marvin Krenz, University of Paderborn.
This image shows a visualization of the calculated exciton transfer from an upper tetracene layer of a solar cell to the silicon substrate. The electron is shown in blue, and the electron hole in red. Image credit: Marvin Krenz, University of Paderborn. In the interest of improving solar cell efficiency, a research team led by Prof. Wolf Gero Schmidt at the University of Paderborn has been using high-performance computing resources at the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart to study how these cells convert light to electricity. Recently, the team has been using HLRS’s Hawk supercomputer to determine how designing certain strategic impurities in solar cells could improve performance.
However, this material does have certain drawbacks for capturing solar radiation and converting it into electricity. In traditional, silicon-based solar cells, light particles, called photons, transfer their energy to available electrons in the solar cell. The cell then uses those excited electrons to create an electrical current.
Unlike silicon, when tetracene receives a high-energy photon, it splits the resulting excitons into two lower-energy excitations in a process known as singlet fission. By placing a carefully designed interface layer between tetracene and silicon, the resulting low-energy excitons can be transferred from tetracene into silicon, where most of their energy can be converted into electricity.