Anjali Choubey

• Choubey, Anjali; Nilsen, Ola; Wenckstern, Holger Von & Sønsteby, Henrik Hovde (2024). Utilizing low-temperature ALD technique to investigate perovskite nickelates for photovoltaic applications. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Photovoltaic (PV) materials currently in use like silicon are well-established but approaching their theoretical limit, and halide-perovskites, even though developing rapidly, are toxic and unstable under environmental conditions. Developing new materials for PV applications is slowly becoming a crucial necessity. In this study, perovskite nickelates are investigated as an alternative to traditional PV materials. Nickelates are not only stable under environmental conditions, but they can also withstand photobleaching and thermal exposures. Additionally, they are well known for their metal-insulator phase transition, magnetic phase transition, and structural transition [1, 2]. This has made them very lucrative for various electronic, magnetic, dielectric, superconducting, and catalytic applications. However, there is not much data on the use of nickelates for PV applications, and we are trying to bridge that gap. Some perovskite nickelates have shown bandgap tuning abilities by A-site substitution control [2-4]. In this work, Terbium nickelate (TbNiO3) and Gadolinium nickelate (GdNiO3) thin films fabricated using low-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques were studied and characterized. X-ray diffraction gave information about the structure and crystallinity, x-ray fluorescence and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy about the composition, and spectroscopic ellipsometry about the thickness and refractive indices of the deposited films. These investigations helped gain valuable insight into the extent of the semiconductive nature of these materials and how to exploit them for PV applications. Reference: 1. Catalano, S., et al., Reports on Progress in Physics, 81(4), 046501 (2018). 2. Mercy, A., et al., Nature Communications, 8(1), (2017). 3. Chang, L., et al., Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 49(44), (2016). 4. Chang, L., et al., ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 11(17), (2019).

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