The main goal of the ZEUS project is to develop highly optimized, radiation hard, triple junction nanowire solar cells for in-orbit efficient solar energy collection. Scalability of these devices will be pursued by peel off technology and transfer to light weight substrates like Al foil for contacting, enabling subsequent development of large deployable photovoltaic panels to collect the solar energy. Single band gap nanowire solar cells have efficiencies of approximately 15 % while triple junction nanowire solar cells promise (modelled) efficiency of 47 %. A key for achieving this will be developing surface passivation schemes for the three-band-gap junction in order to realize high Voc and optimal conditions for current matching of the different junctions in the solar cell. Coordinator: Prof. Magnus Borgström, Lund University, Sweden.

The partner INN, NCSR "Demokritos", participates in the project with Dr. N. Papanikolaou as PI. It will contribute to the project in two main areas: 1) Through its PhotonS Group, led by Dr. N. Papanikolaou, it will support the development using theory and simulation of both the optical and the electrical response of the solar cells. The project also envisions low weight high efficiency nanowire solar cells for energy harvesting in space and explore schemes of wireless power transmission using those in combination with nanowire based wireless transmission experiments. 2) Through its EMNRFS group, led by Dr. H. Contopanagos, it will pursue efficient wireless and secure power transmission using harvested solar energy conversion into microwaves for transmission. This group will provide optimized designs of printed, lightweight and efficient antennas and antenna arraysfor efficient microwave Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) in space. The INN partner, through its two groups above,  has experience in solid state theory, and in particular in modelling photonic devices and will contribute with the simulation and theoretical understanding of the compound semiconductor nanowire devices and their use in space. It also has experience in the design, optimization, fabrication and characterization if a variety of antennas and antenna array architectures, appropriate for the WPT part of the project. In conclusion, the above two groups of INN,  NCSR"Demokritos", will be responsible for simulating both the optical and the electronic response of the nanowire devices, as well as the design of efficient antennas for microwave transmission. The contribution of theory is expected to facilitate the development of the nanowire solar cells, help to understand the behaviour of the devices in space but also explore possibilities to increase the efficiency of power transfer between satellites.

https://zeus-nano.eu/
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101161465