Researchers from Peking University have conducted an experiment which is said to have demonstrated large-area perovskite solar cells are more stable 35 km up than at ground level. The researchers tested the stability of the devices by sending them to an altitude of 35 km above the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China using an high-altitude balloon.

The cells, which had an active area of 1 cm², were developed with a TiO2 mesoporous structure based on two mixed-cation perovskites, FA0.9Cs0.1PbI3 and FA0.81MA0.10Cs0.04PbI2.55Br0.40. 'Moreover, different kinds of perovskite photoactive absorbers with and without UV filters were investigated', the scientists said.

Korea East-West Power and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have jointly launched a project to develop an ultra-high efficiency multi-junction solar cell using perovskite.

The company announced that researchers from the two organizations held the first meeting at its head office in Ulsan and discussed the technology of producing a standard cell (15.6×15.6 square centimeters)-sized large-scale solar panel by establishing a vacuum deposition semiconductor facility.

An international research team has developed a new method of synthesizing miniature light sources. The method is based on a unique laser which produces millions of nanolasers from a perovskite film in a few minutes. Such lasers look like small disks, work at room temperature and have a tunable emission wavelength from 550 to 800 nm. The high speed and good reproducibility of this method make it promising for the industrial production of single nanolasers as well as whole chains.

A scheme of the synthesis and operation and an image of the final nanolasers

Such miniature light sources or nanolasers are required, for example, for producing optical chips that could process information in next-gen devices. However, making such light sources is generally not that easy due to unstable materials, as well as the complex and expensive fabrication methods, which are difficult to control and adjust for industrial production. The scientists from ITMO, the Far Eastern Federal University, Texas University at Dallas, and the Australian National University have found a new way to solve this problem. They have developed a method that may enable the creation of millions of nanolasers from an optically active halide perovskites in a few minutes.

Researchers at the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN) have developed a bifacial tandem solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 30.2%. The new cell device ' created with Dutch consortium Solliance ' was made by applying a newly developed perovskite cell on top of an industrial bifacial crystalline silicon version.

This approach, according to the scientists, enables a significantly higher power conversion efficiency as one cell is optimized for high energy photons, and the other low energy particles. 'The tandem device proposed here uses a four-terminal configuration, thus having separate circuits for the top and bottom cells that allow for dynamic fine tuning and optimization of the energy yield,' the creators of the cell wrote. The cell is also said to be better able to capture light on its front and rear sides by responding to the variability of incident light through its electronic design.

Researchers at the Japanese Kanazawa University aim to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells by using two kinds of titanium oxide - anatase and brookite.

The team claims to have reached a conversion efficiency of 16.82% in a perovskite cell by applying a brookite layer made of water-solute brookite nanoparticles on an anatase layer. This reportedly helps to improve the transport of electrons from the center of the cell to its electrodes, while also preventing charges from recombining at the border between the perovskite material and the electron transport layer. 'Together, both these effects allow us to achieve higher solar cell efficiencies,' said the research coordinator, Md. Shahiduzzaman.

The following post is a sponsored post by MBRAUN

Prof. Dr. Steve Albrecht and his 11-member team of the Helmholtz Innovation Lab HySPRINT at
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) develop tandem solar cells that combine the advantages of silicon and perovskite solar cells. In order to create the best research conditions, Prof. Albrecht had installed systems from the market leaders, MBRAUN and CreaPhys (a part of MBRAUN).

HySPRINT Perovskite Lab © HZB / M. Setzpfandt

The Perovskite cluster is composed of 4 different parts: Precursor synthesis, wet coating with spin coater, evaporation of perovskites and metallization, scaling with inkjet printer and slot die coater under laminar flow. Every part of the cluster is integrated in inert gloveboxes under inert atmosphere to guarantee the best performance of the devices, as well as the best repeatability of the processes.