The increasing demand for electrical energy is polluting our environment, making it reasonables to source energy from renewable resources. An excellent technology in this regard are perovskite solar cells, which harness solar energy. However, they are not yet sufficiently advanced for commercial use. In this thesis, we investigated the impact of elevated temperatures on the performance and properties of perovskite solar cells, as operation under elevated temperatures is one of the main challenges.
We conducted the thesis research in the LPVO laboratory by fabricating perovskite solar cells. We first cleaned the substrates and then applied the layers. We produced 9 batches, totaling 64 substrates with 6 cells on each. We analyzed 13 substrates from different batches in detail. We examined the effects of elevated temperatures on the J-V curves, external quantum efficiency and stability. We calculated the temperature coefficients and compared the cells with each other.
Results indicate that elevated temperatures negatively affect perovskite solar cells. Heating widens the energy gap, reducing their efficiency. Additional contributing factors include heat losses within the cell and with the surroundings (greater at higher temperatures) and increased entropy, which reduces the output energy of charge carriers, causing a drop in Voc. Even short-term exposure to high temperatures leads to degradation, which is even more pronounced over longer periods. We must also consider human error in fabrication, which will improve with machine manufacturing in the future.
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