Perovskite materials

SoFab Inks, a supplier of specialty materials used in perovskite manufacturing, has introduced a new high-performance, low-cost electron transport layer (ETL), designed to enhance the durability and manufacturability of perovskite solar cells.

SoFab's new product is a functionalized nanoparticle ink that can be tuned with a dopant. This innovative ETL offers a range of benefits, including low-temperature solution processability, excellent photostability, high chemical stability, robust electron conductivity, good optical transparency, wide band gap, and favorable alignment with perovskites.

SoFab's team has reported a PCE of over 20% in an inverted perovskite solar cell architecture made with a plastic substrate. The Company anticipates that its patented ETL could serve as a viable substitute for the commonly employed C60, an expensive organic ETL notorious for delamination issues and Voc pinning.

Researchers from Germany's Philipps-University Marburg, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Fraunhofer Research Institution for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Sweden's Uppsala University have examined the question of availability of enough materials to produce perovskite PVs on the multi-terawatt-scale needed to make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation.

The scientists assessed the material demand for a multi-TW-scale perovskite PV production, identified potential supply risks for each material, and derived guidelines for further device optimization and material research. The study is based on a model for future multi-TW perovskite PV production that is coupled to an inventory of the most relevant materials used for PSC production. The team considered two factors of supply criticality, namely, mining capacity for minerals and the production capacity for synthetic materials. 

Tokyo Chemical Industry (TCI), a global supplier of laboratory chemicals and specialty materials, launched a new high-performance hole collecting material (HCM), that can be used to enhance the performance of inverted perovskite solar cells, as it efficiently collects holes from the perovskite layer.

TCI's new 3PATAT-C3 is a SAM formation reagent, with face-on orientation to the substrate surface. It strongly binds to the ITO layer, has a high coverage ratio and it offers efficient charge recovery from the perovskite layer. The material is now available in high purity, and preparations are underway with a view to large-scale supply. See here for more info.

Both ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials are widely used today, and can coexist together in so-called multiferroic compounds, which can be traced back to the 1950s. Their use in modern technology has seen a recent resurgence as multiferroic compounds are energy-efficient and could be used in information storage devices for computers, servers, and hard drives.

Working with researchers from Kyoto University in Japan, Northwestern Engineering’s James Rondinelli discovered the first all-inorganic halide perovskite-derived multiferroic material, exhibiting a form of ferroelectricity called hybrid improper ferroelectricity which is also coupled to magnetic properties. In the past, studies of multiferroic compounds had been largely limited to transition metal oxides, yet many other materials classes can exhibit this phenomenon.

Researchers at Germany's Forschungszentrum Jülich have reported a method to fabricate >1-micrometer thick perovskite films by employing hole-transporting bilayers of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and poly[bis(4-phenyl) (2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)amine] (PTAA). Recognizing the critical role transport layers play in exacerbating thickness-dependent losses, the team optimized a dual-layer hole transport architecture to reduce resistive losses and recombination. The authors achieved remarkable efficiency retention at over 1 micron thickness.

This work focuses on a solar cell architecture that decouples thickness from efficiency limitations. By sandwiching specialty organic films around the perovskite layer, the authors enabled micron-scale thicknesses without forfeiting peak performance. Their design notably achieves a remarkable 20.2% efficiency at over 1 micron thickness with minimal losses compared to thinner versions.

A team led by RIKEN researchers recently investigated how certain perovskite materials convert light into electricity. Their findings could hel improve their efficiency and use in solar cells.

Solar cells convert light into electricity by a phenomenon known as the photovoltaic effect. The vast majority of solar cells consist of two semiconductors put together—one with an excess of electrons and the other being electron deficient. This is because the setup has a high conversion efficiency. But another photovoltaic effect has also been attracting attention—the bulk photovoltaic effect, so called because it only involves a single material. While its conversion efficiency is currently rather low, recent research has suggested ways for improving its efficiency.

Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), in collaboration with Tohoku University, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), recently investigated a promising material for next-generation electrochemical devices: hexagonal perovskite-related oxide Ba₇Nb_3.8Mo_1.2O_20.1. The team unveiled the material's unique ion-transport mechanisms, that could pave the way for better dual-ion conductors.

Clean energy technologies are the cornerstone of sustainable societies, and solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and proton ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) are among the most promising types of electrochemical devices for green power generation. These devices, however, still face challenges that hinder their development and adoption.

A team of researchers, led by Nuri Yazdani, Vanessa Wood at ETH Zurich, and Aaron Lindenberg at Stanford, along with colleagues at Empa, recently studied atom motion within nanocrystals with a time resolution in the range of billionths of a second. 

The scientists managed to capture snapshots of the crystal structure of perovskite nanocrystals as excited electrons deformed it. They surprisingly found that the deformation straightened out the skewed crystal structure rather than making it more disordered.

Tokyo Chemical Industry (TCI), a global supplier of laboratory chemicals and specialty materials, is offering a stable supply of high-quality Spiro-OMeTAD hole transport materials, used in perovskite solar panels, light emitting devices and other applications.

Spiro-OMeTAD materials are suitable for solution processing, and feature a HOMO of -5.0 eV and a LUMO of -1.5 eV. This is a standard material used in many perovskite stacks, and is the benchmark material also used in many research activities for comparative evaluation.

 TCI has a large-scale capacity to produce this material, in very high quality and at a relatively low cost. See here for more info. 

A new project, led by the University of Michigan, could enable industrial competitors to collectively build a predictive model that speeds the development of perovskite solar cells. The aim is to improve upon the process of layer-by-layer deposition of semiconductor materials during production with an information-sharing approach that boosts cooperation between companies while protecting proprietary information and worker interests.

The project is backed by a four-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and includes partners at the University of California San Diego.