Application of Materials Informatics Tools to the Analysis of Combinatorial Libraries of All Metal-Oxides Photovoltaic Cells

Abstract

Material informatics is engaged with the application of informatics tools, frequently in the form of machine learning algorithms, to gain insight into structure properties relationships of materials and to design new materials with desired properties. Here we describe the application of such algorithms to the analysis of solar cell (i.e., photovoltaic; PV) libraries made entirely from metal oxides (MOs). MOs-based solar cells hold the potential to provide clean and affordable energy if their power conversion efficiencies are improved. We demonstrate the power of dimensionality reduction methods to visualize the MOs-based solar cell space and the power of several algorithms to develop predictive models for key PV properties. We stress the importance of conducting such studies in collaboration with experimentalists.