The global market for photovoltaics (PV) has seen tremendous growth during the last few decades. With continuously increasing energy conversion efficiency and reduced cost, the electricity generated from PV is now cheaper than coal-fired power plants in Australia and many other places in the world.
Characterisation plays a vital role in the optimisation of solar cells and making them more efficient. Conventional characterisation techniques usually require making electrical contacts with the measured solar cells, which limits the measurement throughput and increases the chance of damaging the measured cells. In this project, we aim to develop contactless characterisation techniques for solar cells. This involves the adaption of advanced characteristion techniques such as photoluminescence imaging; and the application of machine learning algorithms for advanced data processing. You will be able to develop inspection techniques that can help improve the efficiency of state-of-the-art silicon solar cells, as well as multijunction solar cells.
School
Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering
Research Area
Solar cells
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
In this project, you will work with the ACDC research team. The team focuses on the characterisation of solar cells. It is made up of around 20 researchers and students. The group has a very friendly environment. We have students who finished a ToR project with us, stayed for their 4th-year thesis, and later transitioned to a PhD in the group.
You will mainly work with Dr. Yan Zhu. He has developed several novel characterisation techniques which have been well recognised in international PV research conferences. Many other experts in PV, including the inventor of PL imaging, will also help and guide you during this project. We will ensure a smooth start to your project, and throughout its duration, you will have a better chance to develop independent research skills.
Together, we will develop novel characterisation techniques to measure the current-voltage characteristics of solar cells without contacting them.
Potentially, we will also develop a prototype of a new characterisation tool. There is a chance to publish the outcomes as a conference paper or journal paper. Our previous ToR students presented their work in the US and Japan!
Nevertheless, the most important outcome of the project will be you, an undergraduate student who enjoys doing research, and understanding the basic skills needed for conducting good research.
The novel characterisation techniques to be developed in this project will benefit from the extensive research experience in novel luminescence imaging techniques of our group. We have several unique homemade luminescence imaging setups in our lab, all customised to meet different purposes. We will either modify one of our existing setups or build a completely new one. State-of-the-art solar cells to be investigated have also been provided by our industrial partners.
Through the regular group meetings, all the other members of our research team will also use their expertise in characterisation to help you solve the problems you may encounter. We also have experts in numerical simulation, which is beneficial for our understanding of the measurement results.