A Dartmouth Engineering-led examine revealed in Joule reported the invention of a wholly new high-performance materials for photo voltaic absorbers — the central a part of a photo voltaic cell that turns gentle into electrical energy — that’s secure and earth-abundant. The researchers used a novel high-throughput computational screening methodology to speed up the invention course of and have been in a position to rapidly consider roughly 40,000 identified candidate supplies.
“That is the primary instance within the area of photovoltaics the place a brand new materials has been discovered by way of any such strategy with an experimental follow-up,” mentioned Geoffroy Hautier, Dartmouth’s Hodgson Household Affiliate Professor of Engineering. “Most individuals examine one or two supplies at a time, and we checked out forty thousand.”
Dartmouth researcher Zhenkun Yuan is first creator on the examine with co-authors together with analysis affiliate Yihuang Xiong, engineering PhD candidates Gideon Kassa and Andrew Pike, and engineering professors Hautier and Jifeng Liu — in addition to researchers from eight different associate establishments. This analysis stems from an award Hautier and Liu acquired in 2022 as a part of $540 million the US Division of Power granted to universities and Nationwide Laboratories nationwide to develop clean-energy applied sciences, together with new photovoltaic supplies.
The photo voltaic absorber materials was confirmed within the lab to be not solely promising in its capacity to effectively remodel gentle into electrical energy, but additionally extremely secure in each air and water. “You possibly can put it out for six months and it’ll keep the identical,” Hautier mentioned. “When you do not have to fret about moisture and air contamination, that considerably reduces your prices.”
The examine factors out that, usually, discovering new photo voltaic supplies is tedious and sluggish with an awesome variety of choices to even start to contemplate.
“We have been constructing a database of identified supplies — each naturally occurring and human-made — for a very long time,” Hautier defined. “That is giving us the aptitude to quickly display screen and make choices on what might or will not be helpful. We weren’t in a position to display screen for stability, however we may slender it all the way down to roughly 20 affordable photo voltaic supplies — among the many 1000’s and 1000’s of prospects — and after speaking with our colleagues, we had a sense this one could be secure.”
The crew plans to proceed to enhance the instruments for even higher screening, in addition to discover your complete household of supplies they name “Zintls,” which may result in enhancements and optimizations of the found materials.
“There are lots of alternatives round additional characterizing this materials and understanding it higher, similar to the way it absorbs gentle and tips on how to make it as a skinny movie,” mentioned Liu, who conducts and oversees materials-testing in his lab. “Collaboration is essential. It takes an entire group of thinkers and many alternative abilities to make all of it work — computing, experimentation, fabrication, characterization, optimization — and you’ll want to put all that collectively in a crew.”
“We can’t have it as a photo voltaic panel tomorrow,” Hautier mentioned, “however we expect this household of supplies is outstanding and value taking a look at.”
