The Physics of Solar Cells Perovskites, Organics, and Photovoltaic Fundamentals

The book provides an explanation of the operation of photovoltaic devices from a broad perspective that embraces a variety of materials concepts, from nanostructured and highly disordered organic materials, to highly efficient devices such as the lead halide perovskite solar cells. The book establishes from the beginning a simple but very rich model of a solar cell, in order to develop and understand step by step the photovoltaic operation according to fundamental physical properties and constraints. It emphasizes the aspects pertaining to the functioning of a solar cell and the determination of limiting efficiencies of energy conversion. The final chapters of the book establish a more refined and realistic treatment of the many factors that determine the actual performance of experimental devices: transport gradients, interfacial recombination, optical losses and so forth. The book finishes with a short review of additional important aspects of solar energy conversion, such as the photonic aspects of spectral modification, and the direct conversion of solar photons to chemical fuel via electrochemical reactions.

Blackbody radiation and light. Light absorption, carrier recombination and luminescence. Optical transitions in organic and inorganic semiconductors. Fundamental model of a solar cell. Recombination current in the semiconductor diode. Radiative equilibrium in a semiconductor. Reciprocity relations and the photovoltage. Basic operation of solar cells. Solar cell structures. Solar energy conversion concepts.

Juan Bisquert is a professor of applied physics at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain. He is the director of the Institute of Advanced Materials at UJI. He conducts experimental and theoretical research on nanoscale devices for production and storage of clean energies. His main topics of interest are materials and processes in perovskite solar cells, nanostructured solar cells, solar fuel production, and lithium battery. He has developed the application of measurement techniques and physical modeling of nanostructured energy devices, that relate the device operation with the elementary steps that take place at the nanoscale dimension: charge transfer, carrier transport, chemical reaction, etc., especially in the field of impedance spectroscopy, as well as general device models. He authored 300 peer reviewed papers, and a reference book, Nanostructured Energy Devices. His h-index 65, and is currently a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, and member of Editorial Board of Energy and Environmental Science and ChemElectroChem. He has been distinguished in the 2014 list of ISI Highly Cited Researchers.