Description du sujet de thèse

This PhD offer settles in the framework of project NANOSOLARCELLS funded by the Europe-Africa Research and Innovation call on Renewable Energy (LEAP-RE program). NANOSOLARCELLS is a joint project between France, Algeria, Egypt, Maroc and Romania.
The thesis will be carried out at NaFMAT group "Nano and Functional Materials : from synthesis to applications" belonging to CEMHTI laboratory, a unit of Institue de Chimie (INC) of CNRS, in Orléans (France). A close collaboration with the partners of the project will be carried out, involving short reserach internships in the partner's institutions.
The main goal of NANOSOLARCELLS is to increase the conversion efficiency of solar cells (photovoltaic and sensitized) through an innovative approach that will allow the exploitation of the UV radiation fraction of the solar spectrum. Current solar cells technologies are mainly exclusively sensitive to low energy photons, while high energy UV photons are "ignored" in PV processes. We propose to meet these losses by developing a down-shifting layer with ad-hoc designed optical properties, which can be deposited on commercial solar cells to increase their efficiency.
We propose to develop a sustainable and endogenous system for renewable electricity production based on the conversion and efficient harvesting of solar UV photons by means of radiative processes occurring in conveniently selected photoemissive materials (e.g., luminescent carbon nanostructures, polymer complexes and their combination).
Furthermore, the materials will be tested for durability in aggressive environmental conditions (e.g., dust, high level of irradiation) in African countries.

Contexte de travail

Centre Conditions Extremes Materiaux: Haute Temperature et Irradiation (CEMHTI-CNRS) is an intramural research unit (UPR3079) of CNRS, ascribed to the Institute of Chemistry and in partnership with University of Orléans, with about 100 people. Current research interests encompass research on advanced nanostructured materials applied in fields strongly linked to current major societal challenges such as energy storage and conversion, environment (water treatment, gas storage and separation), sustainable development, and health.

The recruited researcher will be attached to NAfMAT group in CEMHTI (site HT), and will be supervised by the scientific responsbile for this thesis and principal investigator of NANOSOLARCELLS project.

Contraintes et risques

The activities related to the job profile of this PhD thesis require professional travel during the 3 years of the thesis to the laboratory(s) partner(s) of the project (Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Romania).
Such collaboration will involve short research internships in international partner institutions.
A joint PhD thesis with partners of NANOSOLARCELL project will be envisaged.

Informations complémentaires

This PhD thesis is funded in the framework of a collaborative project NANOSOLARCELLS, of the programme LEAP-RE (Europe-Afrique Recherche et Innovation sur les Energies Renouvelables), in collaboration with various international institutions in France, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Romania.