ABOUT

OVERVIEW

Internet of things (IoT) - interconnected sensors, actuators, communication apparatuses - is a revolution quickly progressing: 11.3 billion IoT devices where installed by the end of 2020, expected to grow to 27 billion by 2025. IoT allows to develop smart healthcare, smart buildings, smart factories, smart cars, smart cities, etc, guaranteeing optimal use of objects, resources and services. These billions IoT devices need powering, which poses several challenges: i) autonomous powering for mobile/remotely installed devices, ii) increase of energy consumption, which could reduce the improved use of resources guaranteed by IoT sensing and actuating, and iii) the need to check the functioning of power sources. Traditional technologies, such as batteries, are not a suitable are they require continuum check of the charge level and integrity. Indoor photovoltaics (IPV) ie. PV cells harvesting light illuminating the interior of buildings, combined, for example, with supercapacitors may constitute a powerpack continuously and reliably powering IoT devices.

                  Cs2AgBiBr6                                                                                  BiOI                                     Cs3Sb2I9-xClx

Selected PIMs for IPV are the focus of the PINPOINT project, whose major impact will be closing the gap between present limited knowledge of the origin of their poor performance and optimization strategies to unlock their full potential.

More in general, PINPOINT will give a significant contribution to the quest for defect-tolerant materials for photovoltaics and beyond (light emission, sensing, etc).  A general principle inspired by lead-halide perovskite is to identify and develop defect-tolerance However, this resulted to be an insufficient criterium, especially for large bandgap semiconductors: semiconductors with bandgap in the range 1.6–2.5 eV feature inferior optoelectronic performance (with respect to their Schottky-Queisser limit) compared to their narrow bandgap counterparts. The comparative analysis of the defects and performance characteristics of Cs2AgBiBr6, BiOI and Cs3Sb2I9-xClx will help us understanding the performance bottleneck of large bandgap semiconductors, and to identify additional criteria for their selection, development and fabrication of the corresponding devices.