perovskite solar cells

MiaSolé and Solliance have achieved record performance by optimizing the bandgap and the efficiency of both the rigid semi-transparent perovskite top cell and the flexible CIGS bottom cell.

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is funding research to develop high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells, as well as perovskites.

Scientists in Singapore have conducted a review of all existing methods to produce colorful opaque and semitransparent perovskite solar cells for applications in BIPV and urban environments. They identified two general approaches consisting of coloring the perovskites via external or internal modifications.

Europium ions have been used by Chinese researchers to passivate both the perovskite and electron transport layer (ETL) films of a MAPbI3 perovskite solar cell. As a result, the device’s efficiency was raised by approximately 1.5%. The dual passivation approach also achieved an increase in the cell’s fill factor and open-circuit voltage.

The 5x5cm device was developed by a Japanese research group. The thickness of the perovskite films was increased to reduce defects and pinholes and this was achieved by adding ammonium chloride to the lead iodine solution used in the formation of the films. The device was able to work for 1,600 hours at more than 80% of this efficiency.

Scientists in Spain and Colombia took a closer look at the degradation mechanisms affecting perovskite solar cells, and developed a new, high throughput method to characterize their performance in an outdoor setting. The group evaluated the method through outdoor testing on perovskite modules manufactured in a lab. it expects its findings to offer easier device characterization and better understanding of the degradation mechanisms affecting perovskite solar cells, both important factors in the technology’s development.

Australian scientists have built a perovskite solar cell based on 2D and 3D salts. By adding a fluorinated lead salt in the processing solution – normally used to form 3D methylammonium lead iodide – they were able to achieve a 21.1% efficiency, an open-circuit voltage of 1.12 V, a short-circuit current of 22.4 mA/cm2, and a fill factor of 84%.

Italian researchers have engineered a hole extraction layer with water-splitting additives to reduce the impact of moisture in perovskite PV devices. They claim that the method ensured a power conversion efficiency of more than 9% in perovskite cells stored for a month in a water-saturated atmosphere.

A new paper from scientists in China and Canada examines the recent progress in the development of perovskite-silicon tandem cells, finding a technology that’s poised for rapid commercialization, with a few research challenges still to overcome. These are primarily related to ensuring the perovskite layer can match the lifetime of the silicon cell underneath.

Polaron formation in perovskite solar cells has been indicated in scientific research as a possible factor for making this kind of cell particularly efficient, although the mechanism behind polarons’ action is completely unknown. A U.S. research group has now observed how polaron distortions form and grow.