Solar cells could soon pull double duty, harvesting light for power while simultaneously receiving data signals through the same surface. This Overseas Travel Grant tackles a practical bottleneck: today’s solar cells are optimised for energy conversion, not for communicating with other devices. As portable sensors and internet-connected gadgets multiply, they need power sources that can also talk to each other without extra hardware. The researcher will travel to the University of New South Wales to access specialist facilities and test solar cells that do both jobs at once. If successful, these dual-function cells could let a single window panel power a roomful of sensors and exchange data with them via light—no separate batteries or radio antennas required. The project specifically targets kesterite solar cells, aiming to lift their communication bandwidth from a few thousand cycles per second (kHz) to several hundred million (MHz), while maintaining 15% power conversion efficiency. That shift would make them fast enough for real-time optical wireless communication between devices. The grant also funds an innovation workshop at UNSW to connect UK and Australian academics with energy and telecoms companies, laying groundwork for a larger collaborative programme. The work is applied, not fundamental: it tests specific materials and designs to see whether a practical dual-function device is feasible.
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The rapid growth in portable devices, including sensors and consumable electronics defines a new era for photovoltaics (PVs) because of the demand for innovative and sustainable power sources that can be easily integrated with high-value products. The integrated PV device can also act as an optical signal receiver, enabling the establishment of a simultaneous optical wireless communication (OWC) network among the interconnected IoT devices while harvesting energy from surrounding light sources. This Overseas Travel Grant aims to access the required specialist facilities and related expertise at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia and perform a series experiments to improve the power conversation efficiency and communication bandwidth of my solar cells. The objectives of my visit will be (i) study the surface passivation pathways using ultrathin alumina capping layer as well as Cd-free buffers to achieve low-cost, environmentally friendly, and high efficiency solar cells; (ii) optimise local chemical environment engineering to assess my designs for solar cells as low-speed OWC receivers; (iii) organise an innovation workshop during my visit to create a valuable platform at UNSW to promote project outputs in energy natural OWC and forge sustainable collaborations between academics, engineers and wider energy/telecommunication companies in Australia. Through the proposed novel approaches, we aim to achieve 15% kesterite solar cells with its communication bandwidth significantly increased from its current kHz to several hundred MHz. Importantly, this international collaboration will allow me to establish new partnerships with world-leading experts in thin film solar cells. By the exchange of knowledge and skills, it provides a special opportunity for professional growth that I will use to advance scientific research and innovation in Northumbria university. This will be achieved by generating essential feasibility data for a more extensive collaborative research programme that will include industrial partners from both UK and Australia. Moreover, the scientific findings will be disseminated widely through gold open access where possible, conferences and outreach events to maximum the benefit to researchers in the field and wider public.
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