Facilities – PV Squared2

FABRICATION LABORATORY

The main facility of Prof. Grancini’s PVsquared2 group is the Fabrication Laboratory, where advanced materials are synthesized and perovskite solar cells are manufactured. The facility comprises the following equipment:

Argon-atmosphere glove-box (4 gloves) for the preparation of precursor solutions, with high-precision analytical scales to accurately weight materials;
Nitrogen-atmosphere double glove-box system (4 + 3 gloves) for the deposition of the different layers comprising the solar cell stack, the large one with 2 spin-coaters and 4 hotplate stirrers for wet fabrication and annealing, the small one equipped with a thermal evaporator for the deposition of metals and – in the coming future – fullerene compounds;
Dry-box (2 gloves) with spin-coater and hotplate, for the deposition of perovskites in low-humidity, ambient-air conditions;
Dry-box (2 gloves) with spin-coater and hotplate, for in-situ spectroscopy characterization of perovskite films during deposition and crystallization;
Industrial-grade laminator, for the encapsulation of solar cells up to the “small-module” size;
Chemical hood for substrate cleaning, equipped with ultrasonic bath and annealing plate;
Chemical hood with solvents, glassware, and hotplate stirrers, for all the chemical processes related to solar cell recycling and material recovery.

A second fabrication laboratory is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION in a nearby building. This new facility will host a triple glove-box system devoted to the fabrication of specific perovskite architectures (vertically-oriented 2D, and lead-free tin-based) and their photovoltaic characterization inside the controlled glove-box environment thanks to a coupled solar simulator. Additionally, a single glove-box system equipped with a sputtering magnetron source will be used to fabricate perovskite films and solar cells using physical vapor technique, with a view to its potential scalability and industrial compatibility.

CHARACTERIZATION LABORATORIES

Spread across two rooms are a wide breadth of characterization instruments and setups used to probe and assess the optical, physical, electrical, and photovoltaic properties of materials and devices, namely:

X-ray diffractometer (D2 PHASER, Bruker) to measure the crystalline phase of materials;
Two solar cell testing setups (AAA solar simulator, lock-in, custom-made masks and selector), one for the standard characterization of perovskite devices (J-V curves, MPP tracking), one for long-term stability measurements;
IPCE setup (Ariadne, Cicci Research) to perform spectral response characterizations;
Scanning near-field optical microscopy/(conductive) atomic force microscopy setup (TriA SNOM, APE Research) to extract the electrical properties of films, and to collect high-resolution topography images;
UV-vis-nIR spectrophotometer (Lambda 1050+, Perkin Elmer) to assess the optical properties of films and materials;
Customizable setup for spectroscopy measurements (HARPIA-TA, Light Conversion) such as transient absorption spectroscopy, time-resolved photoluminescence, and photoluminescence quantum yield.

Through collaborations within the Chemistry Department, the PVsquared2 group has also access to a confocal Raman spectrometer, and a scanning electron microscope.