Mechanisms of charge accumulation in the dark operation of perovskite solar cells

In this work, a new current peak at forward bias in the dark current–voltage curves has been identified for standard mesoscopic perovskite solar cells. This characteristic peak appears only under some specific conditions, mainly in the reverse scan (RS) direction and when the solar cells were kept for several seconds under short-circuit conditions before starting the RS measurement. This peak disappears when the above experimental conditions are not applied. It is considered that this uncommon diode shape is obtained because shallow and/or deep trap states located at the interface between either perovskite/ p-type or perovskite/n-type transport materials are dynamically filled during the RS voltage scan. To corroborate this hypothesis, the response of hole tran sport materials (HTMs), small molecule spiro-OMeTAD and polymer P3HT, as well as both HTMs with additives, was compared. Also perovskite absorbers such as CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 and all-inorganic perovskite based on cesium (CsPbI 3 ) were also analyzed, achieving in all cases similar trends.This research was supported by CRES

Tandem Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on TCO-less Back Contact Bottom Electrodes

Mechanically stacked and series connected tandem dye sensitized solar cells (T-DSSCs) are fabricated in novel architectures. The architecture consist of TCO tandem DSSCs stacked with TCO-less back contact DSSCs as bottom electrodes (TCO-less tandem DSSCs). Resulting TCO-less tandem DSSCs architecture finds its usefulness in efficient photon harvesting due to improved light transmission and enhanced photons reaching to the bottom electrodes. The fabricated tandem performance was verified with visible light harvesting model dyes D131 and N719 as a proof of concept and provided the photoconversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.06% under simulated condition. Introduction of panchromatic photon harvesting by utilizing near infrared light absorbing Si-phthalocyanine dye in combination with the modified tandem DSSC architecture led to enhancement in the PCE up to 7.19%.India-Japan Expert Group Meeting on Biomolecular Electronics & Organic Nanotechnology for Environment Preservation (IJEGMBE 2015), December 23-26, 2015, Fukuoka, Japa

Statistical Communication Theory

Contains research objectives and reports on eight research projects

Structural Stability of Iodide Perovskite: A Combined Cluster Expansion Method and First-Principles Study

To aid the development of Pb-free perovskite solar cells, the stability of the iodide perovskite structure ABI3 has been investigated by first-principles calculations, Bader charge analysis, and the cluster expansion method. At the A sites, methylammonium (MA, CH3NH3+), formamidinium (FA, CH(NH2)2+), and Cs+ were modeled, while at the B sites, one or two elements from Pb, Sn, Ge, In, Ga, Bi, and Sr were examined. For the partially substituted system A(B,B′)I3, we found that the stability strongly depends on the identity of the A-site cation. For example, Cs(B,B′)I3 structures are stabilized by a mixture of divalent cations, such as Pb, Sn, and Ge, at the B site. Concerning the stabilization mechanisms, Coulomb energy gain seems to be the origin of the structural stability in A = Cs structures. From our results, Cs(B,B′)I3, where the B site is occupied by divalent cations, are possible candidates for high stability, lead-free solar cell materials

Statistical Communication Theory

Contains reports on six research projects

Statistical Communication Theory

Contains reports on nine research projects

Smoking and health-related quality of life in English general population: Implications for economic evaluations

Copyright @ 2012 Vogl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Little is known as to how health-related quality of life (HRQoL) when measured by generic instruments such as EQ-5D differ across smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers in the general population; whether the overall pattern of this difference remain consistent in each domain of HRQoL; and what implications this variation, if any, would have for economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions. Methods: Using the 2006 round of Health Survey for England data (n = 13,241), this paper aims to examine the impact of smoking status on health-related quality of life in English population. Depending upon the nature of the EQ-5D data (i.e. tariff or domains), linear or logistic regression models were fitted to control for biology, clinical conditions, socio-economic background and lifestyle factors that an individual may have regardless of their smoking status. Age- and gender-specific predicted values according to smoking status are offered as the potential 'utility' values to be used in future economic evaluation models. Results: The observed difference of 0.1100 in EQ-5D scores between never-smokers (0.8839) and heavy-smokers (0.7739) reduced to 0.0516 after adjusting for biological, clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Heavy-smokers, when compared with never-smokers, were significantly more likely to report some/severe problems in all five domains - mobility (67%), self-care (70%), usual activity (42%), pain/discomfort (46%) and anxiety/depression (86%) -. 'Utility' values by age and gender for each category of smoking are provided to be used in the future economic evaluations. Conclusion: Smoking is significantly and negatively associated with health-related quality of life in English general population and the magnitude of this association is determined by the number of cigarettes smoked. The varying degree of this association, captured through instruments such as EQ-5D, may need to be fed into the design of future economic evaluations where the intervention being evaluated affects (e.g. tobacco control) or is affected (e.g. treatment for lung cancer) by individual's (or patients') smoking status