A low temperature route towards hierarchically structured titania films for thin hybrid solar cells
Solar energy as a renewable energy source has drawn great attention over last decades due to the depletion and environmental impact of fossil fuels. Many technologies have been developed to harvest solar energy, among which solar cells are a promising technology to directly convert energy into electricity. To date, the photovoltaic market is dominated by silicon-based solar cells as they give reasonable high power conversion efficiencies. However, silicon solar cell panels are heavy, brittle and costly. Therefore, extensive research is dedicated to find alternative solar cell systems.
One major step towards the design of controlled thermal expansion materials
Thermal expansion is critical in many technological applications and its control represents a challenge for the material design. An international team of researchers from China, Italy, United Kingdom and United States has developed a method to control the thermal expansion in framework materials through a redox intercalation process. The study, conducted in part at the XAFS beamline of Elettra, is reported in Nature Communications.
