April 17 - 23, 2021
April 17 - 23, 2021 (Virtual)
2021 MRS Spring Meeting

Symposium EN07-Thin-Film Compound Semiconductor Photovoltaics

Recent advances in thin film compound semiconductor photovoltaics have demonstrated the potential for generating sustainable and cost-efficient energy, with demonstrated conversion efficiencies above 23% and advantages in manufacturing and materials costs. Both fundamental understanding and processing techniques have been enabling. Emerging areas of research include the materials science of degradation, understanding and controlling fluctuations in properties, reducing interface and grain boundary recombination, further simplification and cost reduction in fabrication, and tandem devices. The symposium will focus on the science and technology of single and polycrystalline materials, defects, interfaces, the interplay of materials and bandstructure, characterization methods, and advanced manufacturing in thin film compound semiconductor photovoltaics. Relevant materials include those based on chalcogenide semiconductors such as CIGSe, CZTS, and CdTe as well as the associated heterojunction partner materials. Novel absorber materials, heterojunction partner layers, and tandem devices are also of high interest. The symposium’s strong program of technical talks is tentatively planned to be augmented by the popular “Young Scientists' Tutorial” on the most critical topics in the field. An exciting addition this year is that a joint session is tentatively planned with symposium EN06 on the intersections of chalcogenides and perovskites focused on commonalities in terms of materials, processing, device physics, and integration into tandems.

Topics will include:

  • Deposition, growth and fabrication processes
  • Novel materials and device concepts
  • Carrier selective, low recombination, low resistance contact structures
  • Materials with superior properties, especially high minority carrier lifetime
  • Characterization, theory, and modeling
  • Surfaces, interfaces and extended defects
  • Materials integration, degradation and reliability
  • Tandem and multijunction devices

Invited Speakers:

  • Daniel Abou-Ras (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany)
  • Shubhra Bansal (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA)
  • Nicolas Barreau (Universite de Nantes, France)
  • Marie Buffiere (Qatar Foundation, Qatar)
  • Jessica de Wild (imec, Belgium)
  • Ken Durose (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom)
  • Marika Edoff (Uppsala University, Sweden)
  • Chris Ferekides (University of South Florida, USA)
  • Yulia Galagan (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Netherlands)
  • Xiaojing Hao (University of New South Wales, Australia)
  • Robert Hoye (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)
  • Jin-Kyu Kang (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology, Republic of Korea)
  • Dmitry Krasikov (First Solar, USA)
  • Lorelle Mansfield (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA)
  • Brian McCandless (University of Delaware, USA)
  • Akira Nagaoka (University of Miyazaki, Japan)
  • Arthur Onno (Arizona State University, USA)
  • Alex Redinger (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
  • Walajbad Sampath (Colorado State University, USA)
  • Roland Scheer (Martin-Luther-Universität-Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)
  • Jonathan Scragg (Uppsala University, Sweden)
  • Susanne Siebentritt (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
  • Thomas Unold (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany)
  • Pawel Zabierowski (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland)

Symposium Organizers

Mike Scarpulla
The University of Utah
MSE & ECE
USA

Charles Hages
University of Florida
Chemical Engineering
USA

Byungha Shin
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Republic of Korea

Mirjam Theelen
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
Netherlands

Topics

chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (deposition) electronic material energy generation photovoltaic physical vapor deposition (PVD) polycrystal renewable semiconducting sputtering