Publications related to Key-features in processing and microstructure for achieving giant electrostriction in gadolinium doped ceria thin films

Spinel Protective Coatings for Solid Oxide Cell (SOC) Interconnects (ICs)

Abstract The degradation of metal interconnects (ICs) in Solid Oxide Cells (SOCs) primarily results from chromium (Cr) oxide scale growth on stainless-steel substrates, causing ohmic loss and air-side electrode poisoning by Cr. This thesis addresses these ...

EPFL2024

Electrochemical devices and computer science: water/thermal management of proton exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers in different scales

Hossein Pourrahmani

The current restrictions on the registration of combustion engines in different countries and the harmful impacts of fossil fuels on the environment and human health have motivated decision-makers to use batteries and/or fuel cells as alternatives for comb ...

EPFL2023

Nanostructure and Optical Property Tailoring of Zinc Tin Nitride Thin Films through Phenomenological Decoupling: A Pathway to Enhanced Control

Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Johann Michler, Amit Sharma, Daniele Casari, Caroline Hain, Thomas Nelis

This work addresses the need for precise control of thin film sputtering processes to enable thin film material tailoring on the example of zinc tin nitride (ZTN) thin films deposited via microwave plasma-assisted high power reactive magnetron sputtering ( ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Font Side Solutions for c-Si Solar Cells with High-Temperature Passivating Contacts

Ezgi Genç

In this work, we studied the potential of using thin films deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) for two main purposes: introducing an n-type passivating contact at the front of a TOPCon solar cell, or simplifying the fabrication o ...

EPFL2024

Optimizing Atomic Layer Deposition Processes with Nanowire-Assisted TEM Analysis

Johann Michler, Ivo Utke, Xavier Maeder

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is one of the premier methods to synthesize ultra-thin materials on complex surfaces. The technique allows for precise control of the thickness down to single atomic layers, while at the same time providing uniform coverage ev ...

Wiley2024

Membrane electrode assembly simulation of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis

Jan Van Herle, Zoé Mury, Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar, Khaled Lawand

Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) offers a green hydrogen production method that eliminates the need for platinum group metals (PGM) as electrocatalysts. This study employs a COMSOL (R) 6.0 model to simulate a 1x1 cm(2) Ni fibre - Raney (R ...

Elsevier2024

Reversible photo-electrochemical device for solar hydrogen and power generation

Sophia Haussener, Alexandre Dominique M. Cattry, Saurabh Yuvraj Tembhurne, Matthieu Jonin, Mahendra Patel

A reversible photo-electrochemical device operating under concentrated irradiation could offer a stand-alone solution for producing solar fuel (in photo-driven electrolysis mode) and power (in fuel cell mode). This strategy would present the advantage of h ...

2024

Piezoelectric and elastic properties of Al0.60Sc0.40N thin films deposited on patterned metal electrodes

Luis Guillermo Villanueva Torrijo, Silvan Stettler, Marco Liffredo, Nan Xu, Federico Peretti

Sc-doped aluminum nitride (AlScN) allows for piezoelectric devices with large electromechanical coupling and the benefits increase with larger Sc doping in the film. However, with a larger Sc concentration, the process window narrows, and it is necessary t ...

2024

Colloidal Atomic Layer Deposition on Nanocrystals Using Ligand-Modified Precursors

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Ona Segura Lecina, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Philippe Benjamin Green, Mark Adrian Newton, Krishna Kumar, Jari Leemans

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a method to grow thin metal oxide layers on a variety of materials for applications spanning from electronics to catalysis. Extending ALD to colloidally stable nanocrystals promises to combine the benefits of thin metal oxi ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Perspective Alkaline electrolyzers: Powering industries and overcoming fundamental challenges

Hubert Girault

For the sustainable development of the renewable hydrogen sector, alkaline electrolysis appears to be a technology of choice. Nevertheless, despite its long history that showed its reliability in the industrial field and despite the traditional belief from ...

Cell Press2024

Towards Scalable Electronics: Synthetic 2D Materials for Large-Area 2D Circuit Integration

Zhenyu Wang

In the past decades, a significant increase of the transistor density on a chip has led to exponential growth in computational power driven by Moore's law. To overcome the bottleneck of traditional von-Neumann architecture in computational efficiency, effo ...

EPFL2024

Quasi-operando Transmission Electron Microscopy Diagnostics for Electrocatalytic Processes in Liquids

Vasiliki Tileli

It is of great interest to the energy community to understand how the mechano-physico-chemical phenomena that eventually lead to device degradation are related to the startup, operation, and shutdown phases. For electrocatalytic systems operating in liquid ...

Swiss Chemical Soc2024

Quantifying mass transport limitations in a microfluidic CO2 electrolyzer with a gas diffusion cathode

Sophia Haussener, Venu Gopal Agarwal

A gas diffusion electrode (GDE) based CO2 electrolyzer shows enhanced CO2 transport to the catalyst surface, significantly increasing current density compared to traditional planar immersed electrodes. A two-dimensional model for the cathode side of a micr ...

2024

Strain relaxation and multidentate anchoring in n-type perovskite transistors and logic circuits

Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Olga Syzgantseva

The engineering of tin halide perovskites has led to the development of p-type transistors with field-effect mobilities of over 70 cm2 V-1 s-1. However, due to their background hole doping, these perovskites are not suitable for n-type transistors. Ambipol ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Plasma-Assisted Hybrid Vapour Deposition Technology for Thin Film Fabrication

Caroline Hain

Continuous development of thin film deposition technologies is essential for the fabrication of films that meet the specific requirements of their target applications and working conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the number of accessible a ...

EPFL2023

The thermodynamic and life-cycle assessments of a novel charging station for electric vehicles in dynamic and steady-state conditions

Jan Van Herle, Hossein Pourrahmani, Chengzhang Xu

The current study performs the thermodynamic and life-cycle assessments (LCA) of a novel charging station in two system designs. The goal is to design an efficient charging station for electric vehicles with high efficiencies and low environmental impacts ...

Nature Portfolio2023

III-V Nitride Semiconductors Deposited At Low Temperature For Photovoltaic Applications

Jonathan Emanuel Thomet

This thesis reports on the study and use of low temperature processes for the deposition of indium gallium nitride (InGaN) thin films in order to alleviate some of the present drawbacks of its monolitic deposition on silicon for photovoltaic applications. ...

EPFL2023

Performance evaluation and the implementation of the turbocharger, fuel cell, and battery in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Jan Van Herle, Hossein Pourrahmani

The current study evaluates integrating fuel cell technology into the batteries as an alternative for internal combustion engines (ICEs) for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). To further improve the performance of the UAV, a turbocharger is also integrated to ...

Elsevier2023

Readiness evaluation of SOFC-MGT hybrid systems with carbon capture for distributed combined heat and power

Jürg Alexander Schiffmann, Jan Van Herle, Michele Gaffuri, Victoria Xu Hong He

The aggravation of climate change calls for the timely development and implementation of highly efficient, renewable, zero- or negative-emission energy solutions with high technological readiness and feasibility levels. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) consti ...

Elsevier2023

Fast online diagnosis for solid oxide fuel cells: Optimisation of total harmonic distortion tool for real-system application and reactants starvation identification

Jan Van Herle, Hamza Moussaoui, Gerald Hammerschmid

This study investigates the potential application of total harmonic distortion (THD), as a fast online monitoring tool, to identify the early signs of failure modes in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). Indeed, the timely detection and identification of faults ...

ELSEVIER2023