Description of the thesis topic

The objectives of CINaM-CNRS doctoral student will 1) To reproduce high-efficiency organic IPVs using green solvents (e.g., o-xylene); 2) To transfer the technology from small-area devices to large area mini-modules (5x5 cm2) on rigid and on flexible substrates by using doctor blading. Specific ink formulation will be developed using green solvents for the printing technique; 3) To transfer the module process from rigid to flexible substrates using air processing printing such as doctor blading; 4) To implement a printing process for large-area devices using green inks; 5) To develop a laser processing on rigid and flexible substrates to reduce device's dead area, ultimately increasing the efficiency of the solar cell.
Doctoral Candidate will benefit from the project's consortium for secondments to partner companies. Two secondments are planned over the 36-month period with 3 months in ECO RECYCLING SOCIETA at ROMA in Italy and with 4 months in EPISHINE AB established at LINKOPING in Sweden.

Work Context

The work of CINaM-CNRS doctoral student is an integral part of the MENTOR project, the first international network to bring together 8 universities, 7 industrial partners and 5 research centers. The MENTOR project involves 17 individual doctoral student projects and received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) (see https://projects.tuni.fi/mentor/). The aim of the MENTOR research will be to provide a comprehensive and versatile technical platform for the development of the next generation of indoor photovoltaic (IPV) systems that efficiently reuse energy from artificial lighting to power electronics taking into consideration growing concerns about sustainability. The consortium will cover all the key aspects and technologies related to IPVs, including sustainable design, organic and inorganic materials synthesis, photovoltaics manufacturing and characterization, device physics and modelling, theoretical and machine learning-driven approaches, photovoltaics recycling, and industrial processing.
Smart buildings represent a cutting-edge solution in this endeavour, harnessing digitalization and automation to coordinate, monitor, and regulate energy consumption in areas such as heating, lighting, and cooling. These systems rely on real-time data collected from an extensive and interconnected network of Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors. However, a significant challenge lies in powering these IoT ecosystems. Currently, external power sources and batteries are required to fuel the IoT ecosystems, thus turning them into hard to maintain and environmentally hostile infrastructures. This results in high expenses, a significant carbon footprint, and limited IoT scalability. Therefore, creating cost-effective, sustainable, and energy-efficient solutions to fuel the rapidly growing volume of IoT sensors is of utmost importance.
The energy from the readily available light resource in buildings can potentially power the IoT nodes installed therein. This would create energy recycling potential to make IoT energy-autonomous thanks to the conversion of the artificial indoor lighting into electricity via indoor photovoltaics (IPVs). Low-cost, sustainable, yet efficient IPV technologies must be, however, developed to enable large-scale and low-energy footprint IoT deployments, and to sustain the enormous potential of IoT anytime and anywhere. To realize this opportunity sustainably, it is paramount to develop and employ low environmental-impact processing technologies for IPV devices that are compatible with industrial requirements and to adhere to the necessary standardized specifications becomes imperative. This is an area that will expand in parallel with the expansion of the IoT, which means new skills and expertise will be required by future technical leaders and relevant workforce.

The position is located in a sector under the protection of scientific and technical potential (PPST), and therefore requires, in accordance with the regulations, that your arrival is authorized by the competent authority of the MESR.

Constraints and risks

No constraint no risk