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Research on solar cells with an extremely thin absorber (ETA)
at ELIS, University of Gent

Nano-crystalline solar cells with an extremaly thin absorber (ETA) can combine the advantages of more conventional thin film solar cells and dye-sensitized nano-crystalline solar cells (also known as Grätzel cells). The p-type absorbing semiconductor is much thinner than the diffusion length, and hence the collection of light-generated electrons by the n-type porous nanostructured semiconductor is almost perfect. Due to the porosity of the structure, a light ray passes through many absorber layers, so that it can be absorbed totally in despite of the low thickness of one absorber layer. This ETA-cell is completely solid state, and is based on inorganic semiconductors: no liquid, no organic dye is present as is the case with the Grätzel cell. This is obviously an advantage (stability, fabrication complexity,... ). This kind of cell is studied within the European Research Training Network ETA

The ETA-network:

Energie-Onderzoek Nederland (ECN) (Nl) (coordinator)

Hahn-Meitner Institute Berlin (D)

University of Uppsala (S)

University of Delft (Nl)

University of Gent (B)

Weismann Institute of Science (Israel)

Tallinn Technical University (Estonia)

Within the ETA-network, the task of the University of Gent is measuring, analysing, modeling

Research staff involved at the University of Gent is:

This page is maintained by Marc Burgelman, e-mail: burgelman@elis.rug.ac.be.
Last maintenance on 4 december 2000.