The Materials Genome Initiative, a national effort to introduce new materials into the market faster and at lower cost, has made significant progress in computational simulation and modeling of materials. To build on this progress, a large amount of experimental data for validating these models, and informing more sophisticated ones, will be required. High-throughput experimentation generates large volumes of experimental data using combinatorial materials synthesis and rapid measurement techniques, making it an ideal experimental complement to bring the Materials Genome Initiative vision to fruition. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art results, opportunities, and challenges in high-throughput experimentation for materials design. A major conclusion is that an effort to deploy a federated network of high-throughput experimental (synthesis and characterization) tools, which are integrated with a modern materials data infrastructure, is needed.
Successful materials innovations can transform society. However, materials research often involves long timelines and low success probabilities, dissuading investors who have expectations of shorter times from bench to business. A combination of emergent technologies could accelerate the pace of novel materials development by 10x or more, aligning the timelines of stakeholders (investors and researchers), markets, and the environment, while increasing return-on-investment. First, tool automation enables rapid experimental testing of candidate materials. Second, high-throughput computing (HPC) concentrates experimental bandwidth on promising compounds by predicting and inferring bulk, interface, and defect-related properties. Third, machine learning connects the former two, where experimental outputs automatically refine theory and help define next experiments. We describe state-of-the-art attempts to realize this vision and identify resource gaps. We posit that over the coming decade, this combination of tools will transform the way we perform materials research. There are considerable first-mover advantages at stake, especially for grand challenges in energy and related fields, including computing, healthcare, urbanization, water, food, and the environment. The development of novel materials has long been stymied by a mismatch of time constants (Figure 1). Materials development typically occurs over a 15-25-year time horizon, sometimes requiring synthesis and characterization of millions of samples. However, corporate and government funders desire tangible results within the residency time of their leadership, typically 2-5 years. The residency time for postdocs and students in a research laboratory is usually 2-5 years; when a project outlasts the residency of a single individual, seamless continuity of motivation and intellectual property is often the exception, not the rule. Market drivers of novel materials development, informed by business competition and environmental considerations, often demand solutions within a shorter time horizon. This mismatch in time constants results in a historically poor return-on-investment of energy-materials (cleantech) research relative to comparable investments in medical or software development. 1
We report on a sodium fluoride (NaF) thickness variation study for the H2Se batch furnace selenization of sputtered Cu(In,Ga) films in a wide range of Cu(In,Ga) film compositions to form Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) films and solar cells. Literature review indicates lack of consensus on the mechanisms involved in Na altering CIGSe film properties. In this work, for sputtered and batch‐selenized CIGSe, NaF addition results in reduced gallium content and an increase in grain size for the top portion of the CIGSe film, as observed by scanning electron microscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry. The addition of up to 20 nm of NaF resulted in an improvement in all relevant device parameters: open‐circuit voltage, short‐circuit current, and fill factor. The best results were found for 15 nm NaF addition, resulting in solar cells with 16.0% active‐area efficiency (without anti‐reflective coating) at open‐circuit voltage (VOC) of 674 mV. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
(O.F.M.) 2 | P a g e TOC graphicCIGS thin-film samples were investigated for the first time using femtosecond pump-probe differential reflection spectroscopy with broadband capabilities and 120-fs temporal resolution.The pump-and-probe beams were focused on ~1.6 m-thick CIGS films. The reflected probe light from the samples was collected and focused on the broadband infrared detector (D) for recording the carrier dynamics of CIGS in real time.3 | P a g e ABSTRACT Although Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 (CIGS) solar cells have the highest efficiency of any thin-film solar cell, especially when sodium is incorporated, the fundamental device properties of ultrafast carrier transport and recombination in such cells remain not fully understood. Here, we explore the dynamics of charge carriers in CIGS absorber layers with varying concentrations of Na by femtosecond (fs) broadband pump-probe reflectance spectroscopy with 120-fs time resolution.By analyzing the time-resolved transient spectra in a different time domain, we show that a small amount of Na integrated by NaF deposition on top of sputtered Cu(In,Ga) prior to selenization forms CIGS, which induces slower recombination of the excited carriers. Here, we provide direct evidence for the elongation of carrier lifetimes by incorporating Na into CIGS. KEYWORDSCIGS solar cells, ultrafast photophysics, pump-probe reflectance spectroscopy, carrier recombination, dielectric function model 4 | P a g e
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