Soňa Uličná is a postdoctoral researcher at NREL working on reliability of photovoltaic (PV) module packaging materials. Her work focuses on material characterization using thermal analysis, spectroscopy, microscopy, and X-ray based techniques to identify degradation mechanisms in module materials after accelerated indoor and outdoor aging. Studied materials include polymeric encapsulants and backsheets from silicon glass/glass and glass/backsheet modules, balance of systems (BoS) components, and most recently perovskite mini-modules.

Prior to joining NREL, Soňa worked on fabrication and characterization of thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cells during her master’s and doctoral studies at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. She did an internship at NREL in 2017 working on scalable deposition of perovskite solar cells. After graduating, she briefly worked on testing and characterization of hydrophobic anti-soiling coatings in Professor Mike Walls’s group at Loughborough University before starting a postdoctoral position at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. At SLAC she used the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to gain understanding of how changes in material crystal structure affect PV performance. 

For additional information, see Soňa Uličná LinkedIn profile.

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed on LinkedIn are the author’s own, made in the author's individual capacity, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NREL.

Research Interests

PV reliability and system performance 

Characterization of PV materials and devices 

Thin-film material science and processing 

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology, Loughborough University

M.Sc., Renewable Energy Systems Technology, Loughborough University

M. Sc., B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Metiers ParisTech

Professional Experience

Postdoctoral Researcher, NREL (2022–present) 

Research Scholar, Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2020–2022) 

Research Associate, Loughborough University, Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (2019–2020) 

Distance Learning Tutor, Renewable Energy Systems Technology, Loughborough University (2017–2019) 

Research Secondment, NREL (2017) 

Internship, STM Microelectronics (2013) 

Featured Work

A Study of Degradation Mechanisms in PVDF-based Photovoltaic Backsheets, Scientific Reports (2022)

Chemical and Mechanical Interfacial Degradation in Bifacial Glass/Glass and Glass/Transparent Backsheet Photovoltaic Modules, Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications (2022) 

Metastable Dion-Jacobson 2D-Structure Enables Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells, Science (2022) 

Failure Analysis of a New Polyamide-Based Fluoropolymer-Free Backsheet after Combined-Accelerated Stress Testing, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics (2021)

Glass/Glass Photovoltaic Module Reliability and Degradation: A Review, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (2021) 

Sodium Doping of Solution-Processed Amine-Thiol Based CIGS Solar Cells by Thermal Evaporation of NaCl, Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications (2021)

Deposition and Application of a Mo-N Back Contact Diffusion Barrier Yielding a 12.0% Efficiency Solution-Processed CIGS Solar Cell Using an Amine-Thiol Solvent System, Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2019)

Scalable Deposition of High-Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells by Spray-Coating, ACS Applied Energy Materials (2018)