Perovskite

An international research group has assessed the potential of down-conversion materials to overcome the poor blue response of solar cells. They analyzed how such materials could be used to improve the performance of perovskite-based devices and found that certain advances might be achieved.

University of Cambridge scientists have created new databases for dye-sensitized and perovskite cells, respectively. They used the ChemDataExtractor text-mining toolkit to collect the data.

An Italian-Greek research group has developed a large-area perovskite solar panel with graphene-doped electron transporting layers. With increasing temperatures, the module exhibits a smaller drop in open-circuit voltage than commercially available crystalline silicon panels.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has made a tandem perovskite solar cell that can retain 80% of its original efficiency after 1,500 hours of continuous operation, or more than 62 days. To improve its stability, they used a hole-transporting material made of phenethylammonium iodide and guanidinium thiocyanate.

Australian researchers built a perovskite solar cell with guanidinium bromide and octylammonium bromide cations. They claim the device can achieve a higher open-circuit voltage, while exhibiting better efficiency and stability.

Chinese scientists have developed an ultralight solar cell with perovskite film based on a 3-µm-thick polymer. It purportedly has a power conversion efficiency in line with that of perovskite cells of conventional thickness.

An international group of scientists has used bulk passivation and surface passivation techniques to implement terbium doping in an all-inorganic perovskite solar cell, while using quantum dots to improve the stability of the perovskite itself.

A new US Department of Energy report describes the challenges of commercializing perovskite technology for the solar energy sector.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers are looking at perovskite materials for a solar-fuel platform that supports the US Department of Energy’s HydroGEN project.

Singaporean researchers have developed a semitransparent perovskite solar panels for applications such as building-integrated PV, vehicle-integrated solar, and smart glasses. They built it with a highly transparent and conducting transparent conductive oxide layer via tin-doped indium-oxide sputter deposition.