perovskite crystals tagged posts

Three types of large-area solar cells made out of two-dimensional perovskites. At left, a room-temperature cast film; upper middle is a sample with the problematic band gap, and at right is the hot-cast sample with the best energy performance. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory

In a step that could bring perovskite crystals closer to use in the burgeoning solar power industry, researchers have tweaked their crystal production method and developed a new type of 2D layered perovskite with outstanding stability and more than triple the material’s previous power conversion efficiency.

“Crystal orientation has been a puzzle for more than two decades, and this is the first time we’ve been able to flip the crystal in the actual casting process,” said Hsinhan Tsai, a Rice graduate student at L...

This is a Perovskite solar cell prototype. Credit: Copyright Alain Herzog / EPFL

EPFL researchers are pushing the limits of perovskite solar cell performance by exploring the best way to grow these crystals. Michael Graetzel and his team found that, by briefly reducing the pressure while fabricating perovskite crystals, they were able to achieve the highest performance ever measured for larger-size perovskite solar cells, reaching over 20% efficiency and matching the performance of conventional thin-film solar cells of similar sizes.
This is promising news for perovskite technology that is already low cost and under industrial development.

However, high performance in pervoskites does not necessarily herald the doom of silicon-based solar technology...