ACAP's uniquely collaborative model is providing an unparalleled ecosystem for innovation. Research teams from different member institutes and different disciplines are joining forces to tap each other’s expertise and make use of world class facilities.
Thanks to sustained support from ARENA, ACAP’s seven member institutes have built a critical mass of expertise, with over 250 PV researchers working across six strategically coordinated program areas.
And with $26 million in funding from ARENA and additional partners, ACAP has established an internationally competitive suite of laboratory facilities. These facilities, distributed among ACAP partners, provide cutting-edge resources in materials discovery, device processing, and translation into practical applications.
Internode workshops with teams across disciplines are allowing researchers to share insights, address challenges, and seize new opportunities.
UNSW and University of Sydney accelerate discovery by combining cell fabrication and characterisation in research programming
In November UNSW Professor Ziv Hameiri’s ACDC Research Group hosted a workshop with University of Sydney Node leader Professor Anita Ho-Baillie and her team. The teams presented their latest research and then mapped out some collaborative research projects.
Professor Ho-Baillie said, “My team has the expertise and tools for solar cell demonstration while Ziv’s team is very good at characterisation, including luminescence imaging equipment with various functionalities. So there’s good synergy between the two.”
“While we characterise our fabricated cells as much as we can, we want to find out more about the material’s properties and more information about our fabrication process and how they correlate with device performance.”
“Ziv’s team can image our cells at different stages of the fabrication process and we can see if these processing steps introduce defects.”
“Also, from images of films or test samples, we can predict whether they are going to make it to become a good solar cell or not. If not, we won’t proceed with full cell fabrication.”
“If we are dealing with a double junction cell, we also want to find out about defects that are present in the top, or in the bottom, or both. This creates opportunities for Ziv’s team to develop new characterisation methods, for example, to differentiate material properties between the top and the bottom cells.”
“Our collaboration enables them to source materials and solar cells from us to test their theory, test their tool development and their method.”
There are also indirect benefits. When the two disciplines come together to look at a problem, they can apply different perspectives and experience which can open up new solutions.
“It’s beneficial to research training, enabling our students and researchers to broaden their research horizons and to learn to work strategically with others outside their own research groups.”
Node leads from Universities of Melbourne, Queensland and Sydney visit CSIRO Energy testing facilities
In November, CSIRO Energy Node Lead Chris Fell hosted James Bullock (University of Melbourne Node), Paul Shaw (University of Queensland Node) and Anita Ho-Baillie on a tour of CSIRO’s photovoltaic outdoor and standardised indoor testing facilities in Newcastle.
Bullock researches on silicon cells, Shaw on organic cells and Ho-Baillie on perovskites, but none of them regularly do outdoor, or module testing.
Ho-Bailie said, “From the visit, we were able to see the current and emerging cell testing capability and capacity. This really helps us to plan for collaborative research work such as energy yield assessment for new cell technologies considering the effect of solar spectrum variation, insolation variation, outdoor environmental variation. Chris Fell has the tools and capabilities.”
“Collaboration works when people’s skills complement each other,” says Ho-Baillie.
“ACAP gives members the platform to talk and work together, enabling our research programs to be more coherent and efficient.”
ANU and UNSW’s ACDC bi-annual workshops
As part of their two joint ARENA TRAC projects, the UNSW ACDC Research Group and ANU Node leader Professor Daniel Macdonald and his team hold biannual workshops to discuss project progress, share new ideas, establish collaborations, and plan exchange visits. The two-day workshop includes twelve presentations, lab tours, and joint social activities. The first workshop was in March 2023.
ANU Research Assistant Anh Bui said, “The purpose is to strengthen collaboration between the ANU PV lab and the ACDC Research Group, fostering knowledge exchange and joint research efforts.”
“These events offer a valuable opportunity to expand networks, share insights, and receive expert guidance on current research challenges,” said Anh Bui.
“Through the support of UNSW’s ACDC Research Group, I’m now able to expand my research to include voltage-dependent PL imaging of tandem solar cells, a capability previously limited by facilities at my home institution.”
UNSW's ACDC and CSIRO Energy discuss collaborative projects on indoor and outdoor characterisation
UNSW's ACDC Photovoltaic Research Group hosted the CSIRO team in Sepetmber 2024 for a highly productive workshop with updates and discussions about possible collaborations about indoor and outdoor characterisation of PV devices.
ACAP Characterisation Mini Symposiums
The first ACAP Mini Symposium on Characterisation was held at the Australian National University (ANU) in July 2024. The event brought together 33 participants from ANU, CSIRO, Monash University, the University of Queensland, Sydney University, and UNSW, who shared their progress on their characterisation projects, findings, and thoughts on collaborative opportunities.
Twelve presentations gave an overview of the recent research activities of each ACAP node. Additionally, a tour of ANU’s laboratories showcased their measurement capabilities.
ACAP 2nd Mini-Symposium on Characterisation
UNSW hosted the second ACAP Mini-Symposium on Characterisation on December 2nd, organised by Dr Henner Kampwerth.
The well received event had 12 attendees from five institutes (UNSW, ANU, UQ, UoM and Hong Kong Baptistry University) with seven presentations and three lab tours.
ACAP workshop on perovskite stability December 6, 2024
ANU's Professor Klaus Weber hosted a workshop for all ACAP members focused on resolving the critical challenge of stability in perovskite-based cells.
Making the most of the ACAP ecosystem
The first part involved high level presentations to identitfy the most significant stability challenges and then collaborative projects were discussed to make the best use of the skill, resources, existing activities, networks and expertise within ACAP.
Weber said, "ACAP does substantially reduce the barrier to collaboration and therefore allow the exploitation of synergies between nodes, in terms of facilities and expertise."
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