Li Ji

Li Ji focuses on the interdisciplinary integration and application expansion of microelectronics and new energy fields. He designed and fabricated silicon wafers with aluminum-covered thermal oxide protection, which can form low-cost, spontaneously generated high-density, highly conductive channels through a single annealing step, showing excellent efficiency and stability. This method is perfectly compatible with mainstream microelectronic processes and traditional photovoltaic techniques, and it is expected to be promoted to industrial-scale trial production.

Li and his collaborators have overcome a series of scientific and engineering challenges, such as film formation issues, film discontinuity, thickness bottlenecks, and high impurity concentrations. For the first time, they produced (99.9999%, 6N) solar-grade silicon films through a single-step deposition process in a molten salt electrochemical system, achieving a 3.1% solar cell conversion efficiency verified by third-party testing. This new technological route has great application potential for solar cells​.

He further conducted detailed cost analysis and technical feasibility analysis and found that this technology could reduce the production cost of solar cell silicon substrates from 43% to 5%. This technology can significantly reduce the future production costs and energy consumption of crystalline silicon solar cells, making future photovoltaic technology more competitive under the backdrop of carbon neutrality, and it can be further expanded in photocatalytic hydrogen production applications.

In the exploration of the intersection between microelectronics technology and photocatalytic hydrogen production, Li successfully achieved wafer-scale growth of in-situ P-type doped two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) films on 8-inch wafers. The N/P-type transistors prepared based on this have excellent electrical performance and can also be used in new types of transistors​. In addition, by precisely controlling the microstructure and optical properties of novel perovskite photovoltaic materials, Li also successfully integrated various photonic functional components, such as micro-lasers, waveguides, modulators, and detectors. This provides new possibilities for achieving highly integrated photonic circuits and chips.