UZH course: Physics and Characterization of Emerging Solar Cells
This course introduces the physics behind how solar cells work, with a focus on the materials that make them—and other optoelectronic devices—possible. Instead of covering many different solar cell types, we focus on the fundamental concepts of how semiconductors convert sunlight into electricity, what limits their performance, and how these ideas apply across different technologies.
A special emphasis is placed on new and emerging solar cell materials, especially metal-halide perovskites. These materials have exciting and unusual properties, like combining ionic and electronic conductivity, which we’ll explore in depth.
You’ll learn how key processes—like absorbing light, generating voltage and current, and recombining charge carriers—connect to experimental techniques used to study them. These include spectrally resolved current-voltage measurements, steady-state and transient optical methods such as photo- and electroluminescence, and impedance spectroscopy.
The course combines theory with practical examples and hands-on exercises, using current research to show how these concepts are applied in real-world solar cell development.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the fundamental principles of solar energy conversion.
- Identify the key material properties and mechanisms that influence the efficiency of photovoltaic energy conversion.
- Describe the unique properties of perovskite semiconductors.
- Develop strategies to electrically characterize solar cells and analyze the underlying mechanisms that affect their performance.
Syllabus
to follow