Lectures will begin on Monday morning (9:00) and end Friday noon (12:00). Two poster sessions will be organized, and daily tutorials will be proposed. The final program will be available soon.
The goal of this program and the school is to build on basic science to challenge the notion of high-performance in PV, and the performance of each technology.
Lectures – day#1-day#4
Basic PV Science – day#1
PV is at the crossroad of many scientific fields, where similar questions can be addressed in different terms. The first lectures of the week aim at building a shared ground on which further presentations will be carried. Starting from a most simple solar cell (Shockley-Queisser limit), non-idealities are progressively introduced to highlight some of the main issues faced by every PV technology. Transverse notions, such as absorptivity, transport, lifetime, selectivity and reciprocity, will be introduced and linked to solar cell performances.
PV technologies and performance indicators – day#2-day#4
The School will then turn to the notion of “high performance” and the diversity of challenges it covers (high conversion efficiency, low material consumption, high throughput processes, low degradation rate, tailored mechanical and optical properties), bridging the gap between fundamental and applied research. These challenges will be showcased on major PV technologies (Si, III-V, CIGS, CdTe, perovskite, organic) by renowned experts of each field.
Active learning – day#1-day#5
From day #1, students will be divided in five groups. Each group will be assigned a “high performance” indicator to work on. Based on lectures, tutorials, discussions among attendees (students, lecturers), each group will give a short overview and comparison of PV technologies on their indicator.
Tutorials – day#1-day#5
A daily slot will be devoted to tutorials. Working in small groups under the supervision of lecturers, participants will have the chance to put lectures in practice with hands-on problems inspired by research situations.
Poster session – day#1, day#2
Two poster sessions will give participants the occasion to present their activities (research topics, experimental platforms, projects…). Authors are invited to include an “open problem” section in their poster, to share unsolved issues and possibly benefit from discussions with other participants and lecturers. Furthermore, a poster-related game will be organized to encourage participants to discover new topics.
Provisional program (subject to change) :
Physics of Solar Cells: from basic principles to high performance
12-17 May 2024, Les Houches School of Physics
