Chloe Archer

Research Title: Polariton-Enhanced Upconversion for High-Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells

The project:

Solar energy has the potential to fulfil the global energy demands, providing an alternative energy source to fossil fuels. However, the efficiency of current solar cell technology has reached its practical limit of ~25%. In order to improve these efficiencies, and hence accelerate the transition to Net-Zero, we need to develop innovative strategies to overcome the energy losses within solar cell technology.

Over a quarter of the power available from the sun is not harvested by today’s technology owing to transmission losses. These losses arise when the photon energy is too low and, hence, is not absorbed by the cell. A promising route to overcome this is by harnessing a process known as upconversion. This involves converting two, low energy photons into one higher energy one that can be absorbed by the solar cell. If this process can be utilised effectively, it can raise the efficiency of solar cell technology substantially, with efficiencies beyond 30% possible.

This project explores the possibility of combining upconversion with solar cell technology.  Chloe will understand the dynamics of the upconverting system and  use this knowledge to maximise its efficiency at converting low energy light into useful, high energy photons. Finally, she will incorporate upconversion layers into solar cells, demonstrating a substantial performance enhancement.