Rice University researchers have overcome a major hurdle standing between perovskite-based solar cells and commercialization.

Through the strategic use of the element indium to replace some of the lead in perovskites, Rice materials scientist Jun Lou and his colleagues at the Brown School of Engineering say they're better able to engineer the defects in cesium-lead-iodide solar cells that affect the compound's band gap, a critical property in solar cell efficiency.

Scientists at Canada-based McGill University have reportedly observed the behavior of electrons in cesium-lead iodide (CsPbI₃) perovskite nanocrystals over femtoseconds, and discovered they exhibit the behavior of a liquid.

Using a multi-dimensional electronic spectrometer developed at the university, observation of the electrons was conducted over extraordinarily short periods of time ' down to 10 femtoseconds, or ten millionths of a billionth of a second.

NASA recently stated in a press release that a quick way to secure a reliable supply of electricity for an extended stay on the Moon or Mars would use an ink-jet-like printer to make super-thin solar cells from perovskites.

"This material [perovskite] is a relatively new discovery, and it has many advantages for solar technology," the release said. "Not only is perovskite an incredible conductor of electricity, but it also can be transported into space as a liquid and then printed onto panels on the Moon or Mars, unlike silicon panels that have to be built on Earth and then shipped to space."

A Swansea University-led project which will help communities in developing countries to generate their own solar power has been awarded £800,000 by the UK government. The money will be used to construct prototype buildings and support collaboration between experts from five countries ' India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, South Africa, and the UK.

While perovskite solar cells should be cheap to produce, use widely-available materials and be flexible with the ability to be printed directly onto a base, the task taken on is to show that this technology can be manufactured and used effectively on actual buildings in developing countries. This is where the SUNRISE project and this new funding comes in.

Researchers from the University of Washington and the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in the Netherlands have developed a way to illuminate strain in lead halide perovskite solar cells without harming them.

Their approach succeeded in imaging the grain structure of a perovskite solar cell, showing that misorientation between microscopic perovskite crystals is the primary contributor to the buildup of strain within the solar cell. Crystal misorientation creates small-scale defects in the grain structure, which interrupt the transport of electrons within the solar cell and lead to heat loss through a process known as non-radiative recombination.