Thin-film photovoltaic technology has advantages to silicon in terms of flexibility, lower manufacturing energy needs, and use in tandem cells. However, the high-efficiency thin-film technologies available (e.g., CIGS, CdTe or halide perovskites) have issues in terms of cost, element abundance, or long-term stability. Finding new solar absorbers is a slow process involving complex experimental synthesis and characterization. First-principles computations on the other hand offer an attractive way to speed up this process. Here, we will report on a large-scale high-throughput computational search for new solar absorbers among known inorganic materials. Importantly, the need for high carrier lifetime is taken into account by including in the screening intrinsic defects and their role as potential Shockley-Read-Hall recombination centers. Screening ~40,000 known inorganic compounds, we identify a handful of promising …

Conference Title

2025 IEEE 53rd Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC)

Conference Country

United States of America

Conference Date

June 8, 2025 - June 10, 2025

Conference Sponsor

IEEE