European Funding to Bring New Technology to Market

Overview

The European Research Council (ERC) is supporting a feasibility study led by Professor Yana Vaynzof, Principal Investigator at the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat, with a Proof of Concept Grant. The €150,000 award will be used to explore a new, high-speed production process for efficient photovoltaic technologies.

The development of sustainable renewable energy technologies is crucial given the increasing global energy demand. Yana Vaynzof, Chair of Emerging Electronics at TUD Dresden University of Technology, Director at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) and Principal Investigator of the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat – Complexity, Topology and Dynamics in Quantum Matter, is working on emerging photovoltaic technologies based on metal halide perovskites, that are promising crystalline semiconductor materials. Her team focuses in particular on the key challenges that prevent the industrialization of this new material system. The Proof-of-Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for the project ‘High-Speed Vapour Deposition of Metal Halide Perovskites for Scalable Applications (SpeedUp)’ will enable her to develop new methods for rapid deposition of metal halide perovskites that are necessary to accelerate their industrial use in quantum device applications, such as optoelectronics, spintronics, and photovoltaics.

"Our proof-of-principle investigations revealed that high-quality perovskite layers can be deposited by electron-beam deposition at impressive rates of ~100 nm/min. These preliminary results suggest that, with further investigation, electron-beam deposition of metal halide perovskites has strong potential to achieve the required rates for industrial applications. This method could make perovskite solar cell manufacturing significantly faster and more cost-effective, thus accelerating their large-scale industrialization," explains Vaynzof.

ERC Proof-of-Concept Grants (POC)
The Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant is a funding line of the European Research Council (ERC) that can be awarded in addition to the main funding lines (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grant). It is aimed exclusively at researchers who already hold an ERC grant and now wish to explore the commercial or societal potential of their pioneering research projects. PoC grants are endowed with 150,000 euros for a maximum of 18 months.