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Photovoltaics Informatics: Harnessing Energy Science via Data-driven Approaches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2012

Changwon Suh
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
Kristin Munch
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
David Biagioni
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Stephen Glynn
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
John Scharf
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
Miguel A. Contreras
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
John D. Perkins
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
Brent P. Nelson
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
Wesley B. Jones
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA
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Abstract

We discuss our current research focus on photovoltaic (PV) informatics, which is dedicated to functionality enhancement of solar materials through data management and data mining-aided, integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) for rapid screening and identification of multi-scale processing/structure/property/performance relationships. Our current PV informatics research ranges from transparent conducting oxides (TCO) to solar absorber materials. As a test bed, we report on examples of our current data management system for PV research and advanced data mining to improve the performance of solar cells such as CuInxGa1-xSe2 (CIGS) aiming at low-cost and high-rate processes. For the PV data management, we show recent developments of a strategy for data modeling, collection and aggregation methods, and construction of data interfaces, which enable proper archiving and data handling for data mining. For scientific data mining, the value of high-dimensional visualizations and non-linear dimensionality reduction is demonstrated to quantitatively assess how process conditions or properties are interconnected in the context of the development of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films as the TCO layers for CIGS devices. Such relationships between processing and property of TCOs lead to optimal process design toward enhanced performance of CIGS cells/devices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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References

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