CHEE Seminar: Nitin P. Padture
Monday, September 18, 2023 – 3:00 p.m.
Nitin P. Padture
Otis E. Randall University Professor in the School of Engineering
Brown University
“Addressing the Stability and Reliability Challenges in Perovskite Photovoltaics via Microstructural and Interfacial Tailoring”
Speech and Hearing Bldg., Room 205
Social Hour immediately following the seminar in Old Engineering 157 (Graduate Student Lounge) at 4:00 p.m.
ABSTRACT
Stability and mechanical reliability are becoming 'bottleneck' challenges in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), a burgeoning thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology. This is because the low formation-energies of metal-halide perovskite (MHP) light absorbers at the heart of PSCs that make them easy to solution-process also renders them inherently poor in stability and mechanical properties: they are compliant (low elastic modulus), soft (low hardness), and brittle (low toughness). To address these final technical hurdles in the path towards PSCs commercialization, several rationally-designed microstructural and interfacial tailoring approaches are used. These include grain-coarsening, grain-boundary functionalization, and interfacial engineering. Most importantly, these approaches are designed such that they not only enhance the PSCs mechanical reliability but also increase power-conversion efficiency and improve stability. The scientific rationales for these approaches are discussed, together with the presentation of current results.
BIOSKETCH
Nitin P. Padture is the Otis E. Randall University Professor in the School of Engineering, and founding director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy, at Brown University. Prior to 2012 he was College of Engineering Distinguished Professor and founding director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering at the Ohio State University. Padture received a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) in 1985, a Ph.D. from Lehigh University in 1991 and he did a postdoctoral stint at the National Institute for Standards and Technology before joining the University of Connecticut faculty (1995-2005). His research interests are in advanced ceramics, semiconductors, and nanomaterials for applications ranging from jet-engines to PVs. Padture is a fellow of the American Ceramic Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Materials Research Society. He has received many other recognitions, including the recent Presidential Faculty Award from Brown University. Padture is editor of the journals Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia.