PhD in Chemical and Materials Sciences

Materials in optoelectronic applications for energy generation

Materials in optoelectronic applications for energy generation

Academic year 2023/2024

Sommario del corso

• Program
• Learning assessment methods
• Suggested readings and bibliography
• Notes
• Class schedule
• Teaching tools
• Course card

Program

Semiconductor materials are useful because their electronic behavior can be tuned by the deliberate addition of impurities, called doping and their band gap broadly ranging from 0.5 eV to 4.0 eV can be used for various optoelectronic device applications. This course will start by fundamentals on intrinsic semiconductor physics to answer fundamental questions how many charge carriers are present and how fast they move in semiconductor materials. Then, doping and formation of junctions e.g. the metal-semiconductor junction and the pn junction, made of two pieces of the same semiconductor with two different doping types (pand n), which is essential for optoelectronic devices like solar cells will be studied in brief.

Then the course will move on materials in optoelectronic applications, for instance crystalline silicon, organometallic hybrid perovskite, layered hybrid perovskite, and etc. In parallel, a variety of designs and configurations of the devices including conventional pn junction solar cell, dye-sensitized solar cells, organometallic halide solar cells, and tandem solar cells will be covered. Additionally, recent work on organic semiconductors for photoelectrochemical application e.g. water splitting will be shortly introduced.

The last section of the course will face the main techniques for the characterization of solar devices with a specific attention of (photo)electrochemical ones and to clarify the relationship between device efficiency and semiconductor properties.

One lessons will be dedicated to the most common issues a Ph.D. student will face when approaching the writing of a scientific paper. 

Learning assessment methods

Presentation exam

At the end of this course, students will give a presentation on recently published relevant works either individually or in a group (more details like presentation time will be noticed at the beginning of this course).

Presentation must cover following aspects:

1. Background:
   - A short summary of the previous main results in that field
   - A motivation and hypothesis established and tested in the work.
2. A description of the methodology and results
3. Criticism:
   - Significance of the result and impact on that field
   - Any misconception, any missing scientific results, any inconsistency or flaw in the hypothesis and results.
4. Outlook

Suggested readings and bibliography will be shared with the students at the beginning of the course. 

Notes

Iy you are experimenting some issues in the enrollment procedure for the course, please send an email to 

matteo.bonomo@unito.it

specifying your

Name

Sourname

University 

Year of Ph.D. 

Class schedule

• Teaching material
• Exams and finals
• Class schedule
• Go to Moodle
• Register for the course
• Enrolled students
• Invia email agli studenti registrati
• Export table