Spatial mapping of photovoltage and light-induced displacement of on-chip coupled piezo/photodiodes by Kelvin probe force microscopy under modulated illumination

• Zeinab Eftekhari,
• Nasim Rezaei,
• Hidde Stokkel,
• Jian-Yao Zheng,
• Andrea Cerreta,
• Ilka Hermes,
• Minh Nguyen,
• Guus Rijnders and
• Rebecca Saive

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2023, 14, 1059–1067, doi:10.3762/bjnano.14.87

• in combination with illumination has been used to investigate photo-generated charge carriers of photovoltaic materials and devices. This is done by determining the CPD shift under illumination known as surface photovoltage (SPV) by calculating SPV = CPDlight − CPDdark, whereas CPDdark is the CPD in

Implementation of data-cube pump–probe KPFM on organic solar cells

• Benjamin Grévin,
• Olivier Bardagot and
• Renaud Demadrille

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 323–337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.24

• method consists in increasing the detection bandwidth by using the so-called heterodyne mode [6][7][8][9] or dissipative electrostatic force modulation [10][11]. To probe the photocarrier lifetime in photovoltaic materials, another option consists in analyzing the dependence of the time-averaged KPFM

• networks phase-segregated at the 10 nm scale. Consequently, if one aims at investigating the interplay of the morphology and the photocarrier dynamics in BHJs (and by extension in other nanostructured photovoltaic materials), it is necessary to probe SP transients upon pulsed illumination at a high spatial

• the measurement of the SPV has been evidenced. These results stress the need to quantify properly the dependence of the S/N ratio of the pp-KPFM potential on the illumination state when investigating photovoltaic materials. For that purpose, future works will be devoted to increasing the sensitivity

Green and scalable synthesis of nanocrystalline kuramite

• Andrea Giaccherini,
• Giuseppe Cucinotta,
• Stefano Martinuzzi,
• Enrico Berretti,
• Werner Oberhauser,
• Alessandro Lavacchi,
• Giovanni Orazio Lepore,
• Giordano Montegrossi,
• Maurizio Romanelli,
• Antonio De Luca,
• Massimo Innocenti,
• Vanni Moggi Cecchi,
• Matteo Mannini,
• Antonella Buccianti and
• Francesco Di Benedetto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2073–2083, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.202

• microprobe analysis (EMPA)) to discriminate kuramite from other closely related polymorphs. Moreover, we confirmed the presence of structural defects due to a relevant antisite population. Keywords: Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS); Cu3SnS4 (CTS); green chemistry; kuramite; photovoltaic materials; solvothermal synthesis

Geometrical optimisation of core–shell nanowire arrays for enhanced absorption in thin crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells

• Robin Vismara,
• Olindo Isabella,
• Andrea Ingenito,
• Fai Tong Si and
• Miro Zeman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 322–331, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.31

• Robin Vismara Olindo Isabella Andrea Ingenito Fai Tong Si Miro Zeman Photovoltaic Materials and Devices/Else Kooi Lab, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628CD Delft, The Netherlands École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institute of Microengineering (IMT), Photovoltaics and

Scanning probe microscopy for energy-related materials

• Rüdiger Berger,
• Benjamin Grévin,
• Philippe Leclère and
• Yi Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 132–134, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.12

• significant role for the in-operando characterization. SPM methods offer a plethora of operation modes beyond topography imaging, which is well reflected in the articles of this thematic issue. The majority of contributions stem from research on photovoltaic materials. Here, electrical conductive atomic force

• cells. Tomography is achieved by gradually removing surface material during continuous high-load topographic imaging. For photovoltaic materials, the interface between materials accepting electrons or holes is of crucial importance. Laurie Letertre and co-workers study a nanocolumnar TiO2 surface

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2209–2235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.207

• photovoltaic materials. Additionally, the cell fitted with an encapsulating protective layer showed a remarkable stability with the PCE unchanged in a more than 2500 h test trial (Figure 3d) [69]. Manganese(II) ions were found to substitute Pb(II) in MA-Pb-Cl-Br HPs, the perovskite preserving the crystal

Numerical analysis of single-point spectroscopy curves used in photo-carrier dynamics measurements by Kelvin probe force microscopy under frequency-modulated excitation

• Pablo A. Fernández Garrillo,
• Benjamin Grévin and
• Łukasz Borowik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1834–1843, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.175

• access to carrier lifetime at the nanoscale in a wide range of photovoltaic materials. However, some aspects about the data interpretation of techniques based on this approach are still the subject of debate, for example, the plausible presence of capacitance artifacts. Special attention shall also be

• photovoltage as a function of a frequency-modulated excitation source in photovoltaic materials, enabling to compare simulations and experimental results. We describe the general aspects of this simulation routine and we compare it against experimental results previously obtained using single-point Kelvin

• that could check the validity of the mathematical assumptions. This led us to develop a simulation routine that enables to predict the behavior of spectroscopy curves of the average photovoltage as a function of a frequency-modulated excitation source in photovoltaic materials. In this paper, we

Current–voltage characteristics of manganite–titanite perovskite junctions

• Benedikt Ifland,
• Patrick Peretzki,
• Birte Kressdorf,
• Philipp Saring,
• Andreas Kelling,
• Michael Seibt and
• Christian Jooss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1467–1484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.152

• is relatively small, the mobility is large and the diffusion length of excited electron–hole pairs can be in the 100 µm range for indirect semiconductors [1]. The examination of photovoltaic materials with properties deviating from conventional solar cells can lead to new strategies for a wide