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Open Access
Abstract: Perovskite-inspired materials aim to replicate the optoelectronic performance of lead-halide perovskites, while eliminating issues with stability and toxicity. Chalcohalides of group IV/V elements have attracted attention due to enhanced stability provided by stronger metal-chalcogen bonds, alongside compositional flexibility and ns2 lone pair cations – a performance-defining feature of halide perovskites. Following the experimental report of solution-grown tin-antimony sulfoiodide (Sn2SbS2I3) solar cells, with power conversion efficiencies above 4%, we assess the structural and electronic properties of this emerging photovoltaic material. We find that the reported centrosymmetric Cmcm crystal structure represents an average over multiple polar Cmc21 configurations. The instability is confirmed through a combination of lattice dynamics and molecular dynamics simulations. We predict a large spontaneous polarisation of 37 μC cm−2 that could be active for electron–hole separation in operating solar cells. We further assess the radiative efficiency limit of this material, calculating ηmax > 30% for film thicknesses t > 0.5 μm.
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Oct 2021
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Abstract: Thermoelectric materials offer the possibility of enhanced energy efficiency due to waste heat scavenging. Based on their high-temperature stability and ease of synthesis, efficient oxide-based thermoelectrics remain a tantalizing research goal; however, their current performance is significantly lower than the industry standards such as Bi2Te3 and PbTe. Among the oxide thermoelectrics studied thus far, the development of n-type thermoelectric oxides has fallen behind that of p-type oxides, primarily due to limitations on the overall dimensionless figure of merit, or ZT, by large lattice thermal conductivities. In this article, we propose a simple strategy based on chemical intuition to discover enhanced n-type oxide thermoelectrics. Using state-of-the-art calculations, we demonstrate that the PbSb2O6-structured BaBi2O6 represents a novel structural motif for thermoelectric materials, with a predicted ZT of 0.17–0.19. We then suggest two methods to enhance the ZT up to 0.22, on par with the current best earth-abundant n-type thermoelectric at around 600 K, SrTiO3, which has been much more heavily researched. Our analysis of the factors that govern the electronic and phononic scattering in this system provides a blueprint for optimizing ZT beyond the perfect crystal approximation.
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Sep 2021
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Open Access
Abstract: Transparent conducting materials (TCMs) are crucial in the operation of modern opto-electronic devices, combining the lucrative properties of optical transparency and electronic conductivity. More than ever we rely on display and touch screens, energy efficient windows and solar cells in our day to day lives. The market for transparent electronics is projected to surpass $3.8 billion by 2026 as the automotive industry seek to incorporate pop-up displays into driver windshields, and the prospect of touch-enabled transparent displays challenges the traditional mouse and keyboard mode of computer operation. However, these new technologies rely heavily on the development of high performance p-type TCMs, a task that has posed a significant challenge to researchers for decades. This review will cover the basic theory and design principles of transparent conductors, followed by an overview of early p-type TCMs and their shortcomings. We discuss the impact of high-throughput screening studies on materials discovery and critically assess the family of p-type halide perovskites that emerged from these, ruling them as unsuitable candidates for high-performance applications. We find that phosphides, selenides, tellurides and halides are the most promising emerging materials, capable of achieving greater valence band dispersion than traditional oxides, and we discuss the challenges facing these more exotic systems. The smorgasbord of materials presented in this review should guide experimental and computational scientists alike in the next phase of p-type transparent conductor research.
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Aug 2021
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Nuria
Tapia-Ruiz
,
A. Robert
Armstrong
,
Hande
Alptekin
,
Marco A.
Amores
,
Heather
Au
,
Jerry
Barker
,
Rebecca
Boston
,
William R
Brant
,
Jake M.
Brittain
,
Yue
Chen
,
Manish
Chhowalla
,
Yong-Seok
Choi
,
Sara I. R.
Costa
,
Maria
Crespo Ribadeneyra
,
Serena A
Cussen
,
Edmund J.
Cussen
,
William I. F.
David
,
Aamod V
Desai
,
Stewart A. M.
Dickson
,
Emmanuel I.
Eweka
,
Juan D.
Forero-Saboya
,
Clare
Grey
,
John M.
Griffin
,
Peter
Gross
,
Xiao
Hua
,
John T. S.
Irvine
,
Patrik
Johansson
,
Martin O.
Jones
,
Martin
Karlsmo
,
Emma
Kendrick
,
Eunjeong
Kim
,
Oleg V
Kolosov
,
Zhuangnan
Li
,
Stijn F L
Mertens
,
Ronnie
Mogensen
,
Laure
Monconduit
,
Russell E
Morris
,
Andrew J.
Naylor
,
Shahin
Nikman
,
Christopher A
O’keefe
,
Darren M. C.
Ould
,
Robert G.
Palgrave
,
Philippe
Poizot
,
Alexandre
Ponrouch
,
Stéven
Renault
,
Emily M.
Reynolds
,
Ashish
Rudola
,
Ruth
Sayers
,
David O.
Scanlon
,
S.
Sen
,
Valerie R.
Seymour
,
Begoña
Silván
,
Moulay Tahar
Sougrati
,
Lorenzo
Stievano
,
Grant S.
Stone
,
Chris I.
Thomas
,
Maria-Magdalena
Titirici
,
Jincheng
Tong
,
Thomas J.
Wood
,
Dominic S
Wright
,
Reza
Younesi
Open Access
Abstract: Increasing concerns regarding the sustainability of lithium sources, due to their limited availability and consequent expected price increase, have raised awareness of the importance of developing alternative energy-storage candidates that can sustain the ever-growing energy demand. Furthermore, limitations on the availability of the transition metals used in the manufacturing of cathode materials, together with questionable mining practices, are driving development towards more sustainable elements. Given the uniformly high abundance and cost-effectiveness of sodium, as well as its very suitable redox potential (close to that of lithium), sodium-ion battery technology offers tremendous potential to be a counterpart to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in different application scenarios, such as stationary energy storage and low-cost vehicles. This potential is reflected by the major investments that are being made by industry in a wide variety of markets and in diverse material combinations. Despite the associated advantages of being a drop-in replacement for LIBs, there are remarkable differences in the physicochemical properties between sodium and lithium that give rise to different behaviours, for example, different coordination preferences in compounds, desolvation energies, or solubility of the solid–electrolyte interphase inorganic salt components. This demands a more detailed study of the underlying physical and chemical processes occurring in sodium-ion batteries and allows great scope for groundbreaking advances in the field, from lab-scale to scale-up. This roadmap provides an extensive review by experts in academia and industry of the current state of the art in 2021 and the different research directions and strategies currently underway to improve the performance of sodium-ion batteries. The aim is to provide an opinion with respect to the current challenges and opportunities, from the fundamental properties to the practical applications of this technology.
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Jul 2021
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Abstract: Structural polymorphism is known for many bulk materials; however, on the nanoscale metastable polymorphs tend to form more readily than in the bulk, and with more structural variety. One such metastable polymorph observed for colloidal Ag2Se nanocrystals has traditionally been referred to as the “tetragonal” phase. While there are reports on the chemistry and properties of this metastable polymorph, its crystal structure, and therefore electronic structure, has yet to be determined. We report that an anti-PbCl2-like structure type (space group P21/n) more accurately describes the powder X-ray diffraction and X-ray total scattering patterns of colloidal Ag2Se nanocrystals prepared by several different methods. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that this anti-PbCl2-like Ag2Se polymorph is a dynamically stable, narrow-band-gap semiconductor. The anti-PbCl2-like structure of Ag2Se is a low-lying metastable polymorph at 5–25 meV/atom above the ground state, depending on the exchange-correlation functional used.
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Jul 2021
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I09-Surface and Interface Structural Analysis
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Nicholas H.
Bashian
,
Mateusz
Zuba
,
Ahamed
Irshad
,
Shona M.
Becwar
,
Julija
Vinckeviciute
,
Warda
Rahim
,
Kent J.
Griffith
,
Eric T.
Mcclure
,
Joseph K.
Papp
,
Bryan D.
Mccloskey
,
David O.
Scanlon
,
Bradley F.
Chmelka
,
Anton
Van Der Ven
,
Sri R.
Narayan
,
Louis F. J.
Piper
,
Brent
Melot
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[22250]
Abstract: We report on the electrochemical fluorination of the A-site vacant perovskite ReO3 using high-temperature solid-state cells as well as room-temperature liquid electrolytes. Using galvanostatic oxidation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, we find that ReO3 can be oxidized by approximately 0.5 equiv of electrons when in contact with fluoride-rich electrolytes. Results from our density functional theory calculations clearly rule out the most intuitive mechanism for charge compensation, whereby F-ions would simply insert onto the A-site of the perovskite structure. Operando X-ray diffraction, neutron total scattering measurements, X-ray spectroscopy, and solid-state 19F NMR with magic-angle spinning were, therefore, used to explore the mechanism by which fluoride ions react with the ReO3 electrode during oxidation. Taken together, our results indicate that a complex structural transformation occurs following fluorination to stabilize the resulting material. While we find that this process of fluorinating ReO3 appears to be only partially reversible, this work demonstrates a practical electrolyte and cell design that can be used to evaluate the mobility of small anions like fluoride that is robust at room temperature and opens new opportunities for exploring the electrochemical fluorination of many new materials.
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Jul 2021
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Open Access
Abstract: Surface science is key to understanding the properties of a wide range of materials for energy applications, from catalysts to solar cells to battery components. Computational modelling based on quantum mechanics is often used to calculate surface properties of materials, which in turn determine their stability and performance. The maturity of these “first-principles” methods, coupled with the huge amount of computational power accessible today, means they can now be used predictively in high-throughput screening workflows to suggest new materials for specific applications before they are synthesised. The surfaxe package provides a framework for such screening workflows, automating each stage of the process.
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May 2021
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Open Access
Abstract: CdTe is currently the largest thin-film photovoltaic technology. Non-radiative electron–hole recombination reduces the solar conversion efficiency from an ideal value of 32% to a current champion performance of 22%. The cadmium vacancy (VCd) is a prominent acceptor species in p-type CdTe; however, debate continues regarding its structural and electronic behavior. Using ab initio defect techniques, we calculate a negative-U double-acceptor level for VCd, while reproducing the VCd1– hole–polaron, reconciling theoretical predictions with experimental observations. We find the cadmium vacancy facilitates rapid charge-carrier recombination, reducing maximum power-conversion efficiency by over 5% for untreated CdTe—a consequence of tellurium dimerization, metastable structural arrangements, and anharmonic potential energy surfaces for carrier capture.
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Mar 2021
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Open Access
Abstract: The expectation to progress towards Terawatts production by solar technologies requires continuous development of new materials to improve efficiency and lower the cost of devices beyond what is currently available at industrial level. At the same time, the turnaround time to make the investment worthwhile is progressively shrinking. Whereas traditional absorbers have developed in a timeframe spanning decades, there is an expectation that emerging materials will be converted into industrially relevant reality in a much shorter timeframe. Thus, it becomes necessary to develop new approaches and techniques that could accelerate decision-making steps on whether further research on a material is worth pursuing or not. In this review, we will provide an overview of the photoemission characterization methods and theoretical approaches that have been developed in the past decades to accelerate the transfer of emerging solar absorbers into efficient devices.
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Mar 2021
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Open Access
Abstract: Ternary lanthanide indium oxides LnInO3 (Ln = La, Pr, Nd, Sm) were synthesized by high-temperature solid-state reaction and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction. Rietveld refinement of the powder patterns showed the LnInO3 materials to be orthorhombic perovskites belonging to the space group Pnma, based on almost-regular InO6 octahedra and highly distorted LnO12 polyhedra. Experimental structural data were compared with results from density functional theory (DFT) calculations employing a hybrid Hamiltonian. Valence region X-ray photoelectron and K-shell X-ray emission and absorption spectra of the LnInO3 compounds were simulated with the aid of the DFT calculations. Photoionization of lanthanide 4f orbitals gives rise to a complex final-state multiplet structure in the valence region for the 4fn compounds PrInO3, NdInO3, and SmInO3, and the overall photoemission spectral profiles were shown to be a superposition of final-state 4fn–1 terms onto the cross-section weighted partial densities of states from the other orbitals. The occupied 4f states are stabilized in moving across the series Pr–Nd–Sm. Band gaps were measured using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. These results demonstrated that the band gap of LaInO3 is 4.32 eV, in agreement with DFT calculations. This is significantly larger than a band gap of 2.2 eV first proposed in 1967 and based on the idea that In 4d states lie above the top of the O 2p valence band. However, both DFT and X-ray spectroscopy show that In 4d is a shallow core level located well below the bottom of the valence band. Band gaps greater than 4 eV were observed for NdInO3 and SmInO3, but a lower gap of 3.6 eV for PrInO3 was shown to arise from the occupied Pr 4f states lying above the main O 2p valence band.
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Mar 2021
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