To: 06/07/2022 14:00
The increasing energy consumption and consequently, the increase in air pollutants have led to phenomena such as global warming (greenhouse effect) with the well-known effects on the environment and human health. Buildings are responsible for consuming about 40% of the total produced energy, while windows are responsible for the loss of up to 25% of the thermal energy of buildings. A properly designed smart window can control and modulate solar heat and lighting and it is possible, at the same time, to produce and store solar energy. In the last few years, there has been increasing interest in metal oxides due to their outstanding properties. The emerging class of wide gap oxide semiconductors can be fabricated as transparent solar cells, harvesting UV solar radiation, and integrated into optoelectronics as power producers. Thus, transparent solar cells can be used for energy-autonomous smart windows and tandem solar cells.
In this work, undoped NiO and Nitrogen (N) or Niobium (Nb) single or co-doped NiO thin nanostructured films were fabricated by rf sputtering by employing Ni and Ni-Nb targets in plasma containing % (Ar-O2-N2) gases. All films were p-type oxide semiconductors but only N-doped NiO films were transparent. The oxide layers were characterized by AFM, XRD, SEM-EDX, XPS, Hall-effect and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy and the optimum ones were used to demonstrate all oxide UV photovoltaics. Heterostructures based on metal oxides were fabricated, namely p-NiO/n-TiO2 and the properties of the heterodiodes were investigated in the dark and as UV-sensitive solar cells. The layers of TiO2 consisted of double mesoporous/compact TiO2 films, as the ones used in high-efficiency perovskite solar cells. In this way, it was possible to realize all-oxide transparent photovoltaics for electrochromics and tandem solar cells applications for energy-efficient building.
ACTPHAST for Researchers is specifically designed to providing access for photonics and non-photonics researchers to the advanced photonics technology platforms in order to demonstrate their conceptual breakthroughs with industrially-relevant equipment.
ACTPHAST hereby offers :
- Internships at photonics technology platforms
- Hands-on with the advanced photonics technologies
- Deployment coaching by experienced ACTPHAST4R business development experts
Through ACTPHAST4R you can access 200 of the best experts and technologies from 24 of Europe’s leading photonics research institutes, covering the entire supply chain to accelerate breakthroughs towards prototype, and beyond into mass manufacturing.
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In order to accelerate the uptake of photonics technologies by European industry, and thereby help to boost competitiveness and to foster new business and business models, PhotonHub Europe has established a unique European full-service one-stop-shop Photonics Innovation Hub in a manner which is deeply rooted within the wider ecosystem of innovation hubs and manufacturing right across the European continent for maximum coverage, leverage, impact and long-term sustainability.
As a digital innovation hub for photonics, PhotonHub provides European photonics and non-photonics companies, in particular SMEs and mid-caps, with open access and guided orientation to a broad range of services and capabilities covering:
- “test-before-invest” innovation support capabilities along the full TRL and MRL value chain such as expertise, design, prototyping, experimentation, engineering and pilot manufacturing with further guidance to manufacturing in Europe
- training and upskilling opportunities for both technology- and application-specific learning using lecture-based tutorials and hands-on lab-based training within the hub’s competence centres, and even extended to virtual classrooms
- business support services including IP advice, business coaching, and support to find investment from venture capital and other public and private regional and European sources of innovation funding
- seamless links to targeted value-adding opportunities in the wider innovation ecosystem across all European regions, cluster organisations and digital hub networks
PhotonHub has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Grant Agreement n°101016665, in Public Private Partnership with Photonics21.
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