Stefaan De Wolf

Associate Professor of Material Science and Engineering, KAUST

Biography

Stefaan De Wolf received his Ph.D. degree in 2005 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, during which time he was also affiliated with imec in Belgium, working on crystalline silicon solar cells. From 2005 to 2008, he was with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan. In 2008, he joined the Photovoltaics and Thin-Film Electronics Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Neuchatel, Switzerland, as a team leader for its activities on high-efficiency silicon solar cells. Since September 2016 he is an associate professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, working on high-efficiency silicon and perovskite solar cells, and combinations thereof.

All sessions by Stefaan De Wolf

Passivating contacts for silicon and perovskite solar cells
02:30 PM

In silicon and perovskite solar cells, the presence of surface states at their electrical contacts is increasingly recognized as a key factor limiting device performance. In this presentation, first I discuss how such surface states result in Fermi-level pinning (FLP) and surface recombination. FLP impairs the ability of contact materials through their work function to induce an anticipated band bending in the photovoltaic absorber underneath, affecting charge collection. On the other hand, surface recombination inflates the open-circuit deficit WOC = Eg/q – VOC (Eq is the bandgap, q the elementary charge and VOC is the open-circuit voltage). Quite generally, for all photovoltaic technologies, a high WOC also results in a poor FF.

Stefaan De Wolf

Associate Professor of Material Science and Engineering, KAUST

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