ME PhD student Clare Lanaghan has received the Best Student Presentation Award at the 52nd Annual IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference. Her presentation discussed process-structure relationships of laminated perovskite solar cells.
Halide perovskites are a class of promising new semiconductor material that can boost solar cell efficiency, but the stability of these solar cells is not yet high enough for commercialization.
“The project I work on is about laminating perovskite solar cells to enable new device structures not possible through traditional processing,” said Lanaghan. These new structures can help to improve the stability of perovskite solar cells by incorporating materials that cannot be deposited on top of perovskite layers through traditional processing methods.
Lanaghan’s presentation also touched on how lamination techniques can be used to help lower costs in large-scale manufacturing of these solar cells, which is a focus area for Michigan researchers and their partners.
“It was very exciting to share our work on this very new area of lamination processing and hear this positive response from the community,” said Lanaghan.
Lanaghan is a member of the Dasgupta Research Group, which is led by ME professor Neil Dasgupta. The project that Lanaghan works on is also a part of a collaborative effort with ME professors Xun Huan and Michael Thouless.