Nanomaterials with tailored properties based on metal oxide nanolaminates for carrier selective contacts in optoelectronic applications

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Multidefect detection tool for large-scale PV plants: Segmentation and classification

Publication . Rocha, Daniel; Alves, Joao; Lopes, Vitor; Teixeira, Jennifer P.; Fernandes, Paulo A.; Costa, Mauro; Morais, Modesto; Salome, Pedro M. P.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with highresolution optical and infrared (IR) imaging have been introduced in recent years to perform inexpensive and fast inspections in operation and maintenance activities of solar power plants, reducing the labor needed, while lowering the on-site inspection time. Even though UAVs can acquire images extremely quickly, the analysis of those images is still a time-consuming procedure that should be performed by a trained professional. Therefore, a computer vision approach may be used to accelerate image analysis. In this work, a dataset of IR images was created from a 10-MW solar power plant and a comparative analysis between mask R- convolutional neural network (CNN) and U-Net was performed for two experiments. Concerning the defective module segmentation, the mask R-CNN algorithm achieved a mean average precision at intersection over union (IoU) = 0.50 of 0.96, using augmentation data. Regarding the segmentation and classification of failure type, the algorithm reached a value of 0.88 considering the same evaluation metric and data augmentation.When compared to the U-Net in terms of IoU, the mask R-CNN outperformed it with 0.87 and 0.83 for the first and second experiments, respectively.

2023Journal article

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Over 100 mV VOC improvement for rear passivated ACIGS ultra‐thin solar cells

Publication . Oliveira, Antonio; Rocha Curado, Marco; Teixeira, J. P.; Tomé, Daniela; Çaha, Ihsan; Oliveira, Kevin; Lopes, Tomás; Monteiro, Margarida; Violas, André; Correira, Maria; Fernandes, Paulo; Deepak, Francis; Edoff, Marika; Salomé, Pedro

A decentralized energy system requires photovoltaic solutions to meet new aesthetic paradigms, such as lightness, flexibility, and new form factors. Notwithstanding, the materials shortage in the Green Transition is a concern gaining momentum due to their foreseen continuous demand. A fruitful strategy to shrink the absorber thickness, meeting aesthetic and shortage materials consumption targets, arises from interface passivation. However, a deep understanding of passivated systems is required to close the efficiency gap between ultra-thin and thin film devices, and to mono-Si. Herein, a (Ag,Cu)(In,Ga)Se2 ultra-thin solar cell, with 92% passivated rear interface area, is compared with a conventional nonpassivated counterpart. A thin MoSe2 layer, for a quasi-ohmic contact, is present in the two architectures at the contacts, despite the passivated device narrow line scheme. The devices present striking differences in charge carrier dynamics. Electrical and optoelectronic analysis combined with SCAPS modelling suggest a lower recombination rate for the passivated device, through a reduction on the rear surface recombination velocity and overall defects, comparing with the reference solar cell. The new architecture allows for a 2% efficiency improvement on a 640 nm ultra-thin device, from 11% to 13%, stemming from an open circuit voltage increase of 108 mV.

2023Journal article

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