Tan Hairen

Tan Hairen

Professor

Address: Room 1303, Meng Minwei Building

Email: hairentan@nju.edu.cn  

Research Group Website: https://hairentan.wixsite.com/nju-solarlab-ch  

Professor Tan and his team welcome outstanding students who are interested in the research on photoelectric materials and devices and new energy materials and would like to apply to the master's or doctor's program or to the joint training program. They welcome upper division undergraduates who are willing to join the team to carry out research and exploration work. They also employ post-doctoral and full-time researchers as assistant researchers or associate researchers.

Research Fields:

Semiconductor photoelectric materials and devices; perovskite solar cells and their high-efficiency multi-junction photovoltaic devices; silicon-based solar cells; and solar energy conversion and storage

Education and Work Experience

2018.03-present College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University. Professor

2015-2018 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto. Post-doc researcher

2011-2015 Electronic Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Holland. Doctorate

2008-2011 Materials Physics and Chemistry Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Master’s

2004-2008 Inorganic Non-Metallic Materials Engineering, Central South University. Undergraduate

Research Awards:

2018 The 14th batch of the Overseas Young Talents Project of China

2017 Best Poster Award of MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit, USA

2016 Rubicon Fellowship of NWO, Holland

2015 Excellent Doctoral Thesis (Cum Laude) in Delft University of Technology, Holland

2014 Young Researcher’s Award in the World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion

2013 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad

Introduction to Previous Work

Dr. Tan Hairen's research focuses on the photoelectric properties of new thin film photovoltaic materials and the design and preparation of high-efficiency thin film solar cells. Systematic and in-depth research have been carried out in the field of perovskite solar cells and silicon-based thin film solar cells and the world record of conversion efficiency has been achieved in planar perovskite solar cells, amorphous silicon / microcrystalline silicon laminated solar cells and amorphous silicon / organic polymer hybrid multi junction solar cells.

He has published more than 40 papers, with a total of more than 1,900 citations, in Science, Nature Communications, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Energy, Advanced Materials, Nano Letters, JACS and Progress in Photovoltaics. At present, his research focus is on semiconductor optoelectronic materials and devices, perovskite solar cells and material development and device design of high-efficiency multi junction photovoltaic devices.

Achievements in research on perovskite solar cells

Previously, high-efficiency perovskite cells have always relied on mesoporous electron transport layers prepared at high temperature (~ 500oC), but the high-temperature process is complex and cannot be used for the flexible devices and laminated devices that need low-temperature preparation conditions. The planar perovskite solar cells, which can be prepared by all low-temperature solution method, have many advantages, such as simple preparation process, low energy consumption, low cost, wide use and so on, attracting much attention from researchers. However, compared with the high-temperature mesoporous devices, the low-temperature planar perovskite cells have low efficiency and poor stability due to the high density of interface defect states and weak interface binding force between the charge transfer layer and perovskite. In view of the research background, Dr. Tan Hairen proposed the principle and technology of interface chlorine atom contact passivation. TiO2 nanocrystals coated with chlorine atom ligands were prepared at low temperature by selecting the reaction source and solvent. The nanocrystals were highly dispersed in the processed solvent and the surface chlorine atom ligands were retained by using the blending solvent system with appropriate polarity. The theoretical calculation results show that interface chlorine atom can effectively inhibit the formation of deep level defects at the TiO2 / perovskite interface, and significantly improve the binding force between the charge transfer layer and the calcium titanium layer. Basing on the interface chlorine atom contact passivation technology, we have successfully prepared a highly efficient and stable flat perovskite solar cell based on the all low-temperature process (Science 2017, 355, 722-726). The conversion efficiency (20.1% for small devices and 19.5% for large devices) vertified by Newport Corporation, an authoritative third-party vertification agency, is the highest of previously reported planar perovskite batteries in the world. This technology, with the advantages of simple process, preparation of the all-low-temperature solution method and good stability under working conditions, provides technical support for the realization of printing and preparing flexible devices and constructing high-efficiency laminated batteries.

Achievements in research on multi junction silicon-based thin film solar cells and related hybrid multi junction solar cells

The design and preparation of high-performance light trapping structure will not affect the electrical performance of the cell (open circuit voltage and filling factor), which is the key technical problem to be solved in the field of thin film silicon solar cells in the world. Dr. Tan proposed for the first time to apply a wide diameter suede transparent electrode with micrometer scale to microcrystalline silicon solar cells (Appl. Phys. Lett. 2013, 103, 173905), which solved the problem that the the open circuit voltage and filling factor in microcrystalline silicon cells decreased rapidly with the increase of thickness; through the development and preparation of new p-type nanocrystalline silica window material with high light transmittance, a wide band gap amorphous silicon solar cell with high open circuit voltage and excellent short wavelength photoelectric response was obtained (Solar Energy Mater. Solar Cells 2015, 132, 597-605); this series of work provides a research basis for the realization of high-efficiency multi junction solar cells. Basing on this, we further designed and constructed new trapping light front electrode with micro-nano multi-scale textured structure, and realized the world's highest conversion efficiency of 14.8% amorphous silicon / microcrystalline silicon double junction stack solar cells (Prog. Photovolt.: Res. Appl. 2015, 23, 949-963). In view of this breakthrough, the applicant was invited to make a special report and won the young research award at the 6th International Photovoltaic Conference held at the end of 2014. In the multi junction silicon-based thin film battery, the thickness of microcrystalline silicon absorption layer is about 10 times that of amorphous silicon layer. To some extent, the thick microcrystalline silicon layer increases the preparation time and energy consumption cost. Using the highly sensitive infrared photosensitive organic solar cells to replace the thicker microcrystalline silicon junction, we constructed an ultra-thin hybrid multi junction solar cell with wide spectrum absorption by combining thin film silicon and organic photovoltaic materials. By adjusting the gap of amorphous silicon material and introducing the trapping light structure, the photocurrent matching among the sub cells is realized, and the amorphous silicon/organic polymer hybrid multi junction battery with 13.2% conversion efficiency (Adv. Mater. 2016, 28, 2170-2177) is obtained, which belongs to the highest reported value of the same type of hybrid multi junction device. This work provides a new idea and direction for the development of the next generation of low-cost and high-efficiency multi junction solar cells.

Recent Publications

(Note: * refers to corresponding author; ǂ refers to equal contributor)

1. Tan, H. , Jain, A. , Voznyy, O. , Lan, X. , de Arquer, P., Fan, J., Quintero-Bermudez, R., Yuan, M., Zhang, B., Zhao, Y., Fan, F., Li, P., Quan, L. N., Zhao, Y., Lu, Z. H., Yang, Z., Hoogland, S., & Sargent, E. H.* (2017). Efficient and stable solution-processed planar perovskite solar cells via contact passivation. Science, 355(6326), 722-726.

2. Tan, H.,ǂ Che, F.,ǂ Wei, M.,ǂ Saidaminov, M. I., Todorovic, P., Broberg, D., Walters, G., Tan, F., Zhuang, T., Sun, B., Liang, Z., Yuan, H., Fron, E., Kim, J., Yang, Z., Voznyy, O., Asta, M., & Sargent, E. H..* Dipolar cations confer defect tolerance in wide bandgap perovskites. Nature Communications.    

3. Zhao, Y.,ǂ Tan, H.,ǂ Yuan, H.,ǂ Yang, Z., Fan, J., Kim, J., Voznyy, O., Gong, X., Quan, L. N., Tan, C. S., Hofkens, J., Yu, D., Zhao, Q.,* & Sargent, E. H.* (2018). Perovskite seeding growth of formamidinium-lead-iodide-based perovskites for efficient and stable solar cells. Nature Communications, 9, 1607.

4. Saidaminov, M., Kim, J., Jain, A., Quintero-Bermudez, R., Tan, H., Long, G., Tan, F., Johnston, A., Zhao, Y., Voznyy, O., & Sargent, E.* (2018). Suppression of atomic vacancies via incorporation of isovalent small ions to increase the stability of halide perovskite solar cells in ambient air. Nature Energy. (In press)

5. Xu, J., Voznyy, O., Liu, M., Kirmani, A., Walters, G., Munir, R., Abdelsamie, M., Proppe, A., Sarkar, A., De Arquer, P., Wei, M., Sun, B., Liu, M., Ouellette, O., Quintero-Bermudez, R., Li, J., Fan, J., Quan, L., Todorovic, P., Tan, H., Hoogland, S., Kelley, S., Stefik, M., Amassian, A., & Sargent, E. (2018). 2D matrix engineering for homogeneous quantum dot coupling in photovoltaic solids. Nature Nanotechnology. (DOI:10.1038/s41565-018-0117-z)

6. Zhang, L., Yang, X., Jiang, Q., Wang, P., Yin, Z., Zhang, X.,* Tan, H., Yang, Y., Wei, M., Sutherland, B., Sargent, E., & You, J.* (2017). Ultra-bright and highly efficient inorganic based perovskite light-emitting diodes. Nature Communications, 8, 15640. (DOI:10.1038/ncomms15640)

7. Tan, H.,ǂ Furlan, A.,ǂ Li, W., Arapov, K., Santbergen, R., Wienk, M., Zeman, M., Smets, A., & Janssen R. A. J.* (2016). Highly efficient hybrid polymer and amorphous silicon multijunction solar cells with effective optical management. Advanced Materials, 28, 2170-2177.

8. Tan, H.,* Santbergen, R., Smets, A., & Zeman, M. (2012). Plasmonic light trapping in thin-film silicon solar cells with improved self-assembled silver nanoparticles. Nano Letters, 12, 4070-4076.

9. Tan, H.,* Moulin, E., Si, F., Stuckelberger, M., Schüttauf, J., Isabella, O., Haug, F., Ballif, C., Zeman, M., & Smets, A.* (2015). Highly transparent modulated surface textured front electrodes for high-efficiency multijunction thin-film silicon solar cells. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, 23, 949-963

10. Tan, H.,* Babal, P., Zeman, M., & Smets, A. (2015). Wide bandgap p-type nanocrystalline silicon oxide as window layer for high performance thin-film silicon multi-junction solar cells. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 132, 597-605.

11. Proppe, A., Quintero-Bermudez, R., Tan, H., Voznyy, O., Kelley, S., & Sargent, E. H.* (2018). Synthetic control over quantum well width distribution and carrier migration in low-dimensional perovskite photovoltaics. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140, 2890–2896.

12. Kim, J., Saidaminov, M., Tan, H., Zhao, Y., Kim, Y., Choi, J., Jo, J., Fan, J., Quintero-Bermudez, R., Yang, Z., Quan, L., Wei, M., Voznyy, O.,* & Sargent, E. H.* (2018). Amide-catalyzed phase-selective crystallization reduces defect density in wide-bandgap perovskites. Advanced Materials, 30, 1706275.

13. Zhao, Y.,ǂ Zhou, W.,ǂ Tan, H.,ǂ Fu, R., Li, Q., Lin, F., Yu, D., Walters, G., Sargent, E. H.,* & Zhao, Q.* (2017). Mobile-ion-induced degradation of organic hole-selective layers in perovskite solar cells. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 121(27), 14517-14523.

14. Sun, H., Yang, Z., Wei, M., Sun, W., Li, X., Ye, S., Zhao, Y., Tan, H., Kynaston, E., Schon, T., Yan, H., Lu, Z., Ozin, G., Sargent, E. H.,* & Seferos, D.* (2017). Chemically addressable perovskite nanocrystals for light-emitting applications. Advanced Materials. (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201701153)

15. Sun, B., Voznyy, O., Tan, H., Stadler, P., Liu, M., Walters, G., Proppe, A., Liu, M., Fan, J., Zhuang, T., Li, J., Wei, M., Xu, J., Kim, Y., Hoogland, S., & Sargent, E. H.* (2017). Pseudohalide-exchanged quantum dot solids achieve record quantum efficiency in infrared photovoltaics. Advanced Materials, 29, 1700749.

16. Quan, L. N., Zhao, Y., De Arquer, F., Sabatini, R., Walters, G., Voznyy, O., Comin, R., Li, Y., Fan, J., Tan, H., Pan, J., Yuan, M., Bakr, O., Lu, Z., Kim, D. H., & Sargent, E. H.* (2017). Tailoring the energy landscape in quasi-2D halide perovskites enables efficient green-light emission. Nano Letters, 17, 3701-3709.

17. Kim, Y., Bicanic, K., Tan, H., Ouellette, O., Sutherland, B. R., De Arquer, F. P. G., Jo, J. W., Liu, M., Sun, B., Liu, M., Hoogland, S., & Sargent, E. H.* (2017). Nanoimprint-transfer-patterned solids enhance light absorption in colloidal quantum dot solar cells. Nano Letters, 17, 2349–2353 (2017).    

18. Wang, N., Liu, M., Tan, H., Liang, J., Zhang, Q., Wei, C., Zhao, Y., Sargent, E. H., & Zhang, X.* (2017). Compound homojunction: Heterojunction reduces bulk and interface recombination in ZnO photoanodes for water splitting. Small, 13, 1603527. (DOI: 10.1002/smll.201603527)

19. Lan, X., Voznyy, O., De Arquer, F. P., Liu, M., Xu, J., Proppe, A., Walters, G., Fan, F., Tan, H., Liu, M., Yang, Z., Hoogland, S., & Sargent, E. H.* (2016). 10.6%-certified colloidal quantum dot solar cells via solvent-polarity-engineered halide passivation. Nano Letters, 16, 4630-4634.

20. Fischer, M., Tan, H.,* Melskens, J., Vasudevan, R., Zeman, M., & Smets, A.* (2015). High pressure processing of hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells: relation between nanostructure and high open-circuit voltage. Applied Physics Letters, 106, 043905.

21. Tan, H.,* Psomadaki, E., Isabella, O., Fischer, M., Babal, P., Vasudevan, R., Zeman, M., & Smets, A.* (2013). Micro-textures for efficient light trapping and improved electrical performance in thin-film nanocrystalline silicon solar cells. Applied Physics Letters, 103, 173905.

22. Tan, H.,* Santbergen, R., Yang, G., Smets, A., & Zeman, M. (2013). Combined optical and electrical design of plasmonic back reflector for high-efficiency thin-film silicon solar cells. IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, 3, 53-58.

23. Tan, H.,* Yan, B., Sivec, L., Santbergen, R., Zeman, M., & Smets, A.* (2013). Improved light trapping in microcrystalline silicon solar cells by plasmonic back reflector with broad angular scattering and low parasitic absorption. Applied Physics Letters, 102, 153902.