Professor, KAUST
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. From 2005 to 2008, he was with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan. In 2008, he joined Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as a team leader for its activities on high-efficiency 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. At present, he is a full professor and interim associate director of KAUST Solar Center.
In the presentation I will discuss the multiple ways how monolithic perovskite/silicon can be fabricated, built from textured silicon heterojunction solar cells, with an emphasis on solution of the perovskite top cell. Bulk and contact passivation of the perovskite are instrumental to obtain a high performance, which can be obtained through molecular additive engineering. This will be followed by a discussion about the outdoor performance of such tandems and the need for robust and perovskite-compatible encapsulation to do so. I will then move on to discuss reliability aspects of such tandems under accelerated degradation tests such as damp-heat testing, as well as possible mechanical failure due to top-contact delamination. I will conclude my talk with arguing how bifacial perovskite/silicon tandems aid in improved performance as well as stability, thanks to their reliance on narrow-bandgap perovskites for optimal performance.
Professor, KAUST