The Green Energy Lab team from Amritapuri campus coordinated a special session on “Solar Cells” at the International Conference on Electrical, Electronics, and Optimization Techniques (ICEEOT) – 2016 conference held at DMI College of Engineering, Chennai from 3-5 March, 2016.

Third generation solar cells are the most promising alternative for silicon based solar cells. Their low cost and easy fabrication opens a wide window for energy requirements. The wide scope of these thin film solar cells encouraged Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham to launch the ‘Green Energy Lab’ in Amritapuri campus. The research work is done mainly under three sections: dye sensitized solar cells, perovskite and quantum dot solar cells. The research is guided by Dr. C.O. Sreekala, Department of Physics, Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri Campus, in collaboration with Dr. K. S. Sreelatha, Department of Physics, Govt. College Kottayam.

On 3^rd to 5^thMarch 2016, IEEE Madras section conducted the International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Optimization Techniques at DMI College of Engineering, Chennai. Solar cells were included as a special session which was chaired by Dr. C.O. Sreekala. Out of 16 papers presented in the session, ten of them were done under the Green Energy Lab and all of them will be published in Scopus indexed IEEE Explorer very soon.

The following is a detailed report of the session.

The first section was based on Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSCs). DSCs provide a precise and economically reliable alternate concept for the present day energy crisis. It is basically a thin film solar cell formed by sandwich arrangements of two transparent conducting oxide electrodes, a photo-anode and a counter electrode. The papers presented at the conference included:

1. “Lawsone Dye Complex: an Efficient Sensitizer for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells”, by Lakshmi R., Govt. College, Kottayam.
2. “Photovoltaic Parameters of DSSCs Using Natural Dyes with and Nanofiber as Photo Anodes: A Comparative Study“, by Jinchu I., Department of Physics, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri.
3. “Device Stability of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Incorporated with MWCNTs”, presented by Amalrani George, Govt. College, Kottayam.
4. “Studies on Polymer Based Counter Electrodes for DSSC Application“, by Anju Ramachandran, Department of Physics, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri.

The second section was focused on Perovskite Solar Cells. The perovskite solar cell is a type of solar cell which includes a perovskite structured compound as light harvesting active layer. Their tunable band gap, high absorption coefficient, high mobility and good stability make them a commercially attractive option in the future. The papers published at the conference included:

1. “Escalating the Performance of Pervskite Solar Cell via Electrospun TiO₂ Nanofibers”. by Dr. Sreekala.C. O., Department of Physics, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri and
2. “Spin Coated TiO₂ Nanoparticles as Matrix for Perovskite Solar Cells”, by Krishnakumar .G, Govt. College, Kottayam.​
   ​

The final section was focused on the studies of Quantum Dot Solar Cells. The technology provides higher optical absorption resulting from quantum confinement, which allows for bandgaps that are tunable across a wide range of energy levels. Normally, excess photon energy is lost as heat, using quantum dots that excess energy can be harvested as additional charge carriers by multiple exciton generation. This property is extremely useful for thin film solar cells. The papers presented at the section included:

1. “Synthesis and Characterization of Lead Selenide Quantum Dots for Photovoltaic Application”, by Malini Prabhakaran,Department of Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri.
2. “Heterojunction TiO₂ /PbS  Quantum Dot Solar Cell”, by Neethu Ajayakumar, Department of Physics, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri.
3. “Photovoltaic Studies of PbSe Quantum Dot Based Solar Cells”, by Swathy Mohan, Department of Physics, School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri Campus.
4. Mr. Ajith Madhavan from Amrita School of Biotechnology presented his work titled. “Optimization of Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) Operated with Waste Water as Substrate”, and received much appreciation from the audience.