October 2020

Researchers from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have developed a mini solar module based on thermally evaporated perovskites with an efficiency of 18.4% and a geometric fill factor (GFF) of around 91%. The team believes that the panel could be a real step forward in the industrialization of perovskite mini-modules.

The panel has an active area of 6.4 cm² and is based on co-evaporated methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI₃). The thickness of the MAPbI₃ films was 750 nm, and the films were used to create solar cells with an 'n-i-p' layout on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrates.

Researchers led by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a process that allowed them to fabricate three perovskite layers, and combined these layers into a device that reached 16.8% conversion efficiency.

While tandem cells are the focus of intensive research, combining several active layers into one cell is less explored. Efficiencies close to the 40% mark have been achieved with III-V materials, but for all perovskite devices, the efficiency record previously stood at 6.7%.

The United States has urged India to explore manufacturing a cheaper alternative to silicon solar cells, when U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette addressed a virtual press conference at the conclusion of the India energy forum at the IHS CERA Week.

Brouillette said India was "perfectly positioned as a potential manufacturer" of perovskite cells, on which the U.S. was conducting research at its national laboratory in Colorado. He mentioned the high dependence on Chinese technology, saying "We have seen recently with this pandemic, supply chain issues have arisen with countries like China and in certain cases we have become overly dependent upon one country,"

A joint research team from the University of Oxford and Diamond Light Source has developed a new technique that allows reliable atomic-resolution images to be taken, for the first time, of hybrid photoactive perovskite thin films.

Image from Science

The team used the ePSIC (the Electron Physical Science Imaging Centre) E02 microscope and the ARM200 microscope in at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford, to develop the new technique. This reportedly gave the researchers unprecedented insights into the atomic makeup of hybrid photoactive perovskite thin films and provided them with information that is invisible using other techniques.

A research group led by Prof. LIU Shengzhong from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has reported the fabrication of high efficiency large-area perovskite solar module using slot-die coating with high-pressure nitrogen-extraction (HPNE) and effective passivation strategy.

Slot-die coating is a promising deposition technique due to its advantages in low cost, high throughput, continuous roll-to-roll fabrication. However, it remains a challenge to control thin film uniformity over a large area at thickness as thin as 500 nm while maintaining crystallization quality.

Rice University and Texas A&M University researchers have found that a 2D derivative of perovskite could make computers faster and more energy-efficient. Their material has the ability to enable the valleytronics phenomenon, which is known as a possible platform for advanced information processing and storage.

The lab of materials scientist Jun Lou of Rice's Brown School of Engineering synthesized a layered compound of cesium, bismuth and iodine that is able to store the valley states of electrons, but only in the structure's odd layers. These bits can be set with polarized light, and the even layers appear to protect the odd ones from the kind of field interference that bedevils other perovskites, according to the researchers.

Florida State University (FSU) researchers are working to better understand the fundamental processes in perovskites. As art of this task, they found that small tweaks to the chemical makeup of the materials as well as the magnitude of the electrical field it is exposed to can greatly affect the overall material stability.

"How can we make perovskites more stable under real-world conditions in which they'll be used?" FSU Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Lea Nienhaus said. "What is causing the degradation? That's what we're trying to understand. Perovskites that don't degrade quickly could be a valuable tool for obtaining more energy from solar cells."

An exciting application for perovskite QDs, which is likely to be the first commercial adoption of pQDs, is for the display market - films that convert blue LED LCD backlight to green.

Switzerland-based nanomaterial developer Avantama told us that the company passed the OEM qualification with its green pQD film, together with a KSF phosphor solution on the LED chip. Avantama expects the first commercial LCD display to adopt this solution to hit the market in 2021.

Researchers at UNIST, POSTECH and the University of Pennsylvania have created a new perovskite-based nanocatalyst that can be used to recycle major greenhouse gases, such as methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂), into valuable hydrogen (H₂) gas.

The new catalyst is hoped to promote various waste-to-energy conversion technologies, as it has over twice the conversion efficiency from CH₄ to H₂ than the traditional electrode catalysts.

Researchers at Monash University, University of Sydney and University of Melbourne in Australia have addressed a fundamental challenge standing before massive commercialization of perovskite solar cells - light-induced phase segregation, in which illumination, such as sunlight, disrupts the carefully arranged composition of elements within mixed-halide perovskites.

Light-induced segregation often leads to instability in the material's bandgap, interfering with the wavelengths of light absorbed, while reducing charge-carrier conduction and the efficiency of devices.