Solar Cell Materials by Design: Hybrid Pyroxene Corner-Sharing VO4 Tetrahedral Chains

Fedwa El-Mellouhi, Akinlolu Akande, Carlo Motta, Sergey N. Rashkeev, Golibjon Berdiyorov, Mohamed El-Amine Madjet, Asma Marzouk, El Tayeb Bentria, Stefano Sanvito, Sabre Kais, Fahhad H. Alharbi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hybrid organic-inorganic frameworks provide numerous combinations of materials with a wide range of structural and electronic properties, which enable their use in various applications. In recent years, some of these hybrid materials-especially lead-based halide perovskites-have been successfully used for the development of highly efficient solar cells. The large variety of possible hybrid materials has inspired the search for other organic-inorganic frameworks that may exhibit enhanced performance over conventional lead halide perovskites. In this study, a new class of low-dimensional hybrid oxides for photovoltaic applications was developed by using electronic structure calculations in combination with analysis from existing materials databases, with a focus on vanadium oxide pyroxenes (tetrahedron-based frameworks), mainly due to their high stability and nontoxicity. Pyroxenes were screened with different cations [A] and detailed computational studies of their structural, electronic, optical and transport properties were performed. Low-dimensional hybrid vanadate pyroxenes [A]VO3 (with molecular cations [A] and corner-sharing VO4 tetrahedral chains) were found to satisfy all physical requirements needed to develop an efficient solar cell (a band gap of 1.0-1.7eV, strong light absorption and good electron-transport properties).
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1931-1942
Number of pages12
JournalCHEMSUSCHEM
Volume10
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 5 2017
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Energy
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • General Materials Science
  • General Chemical Engineering

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