September 2018

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has announced seven new Prosperity Partnership projects that will build links between the UK's research base and leading industry partners. The new projects will focus on four of the Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges (ISCF) , involve nineteen industry partners and ten universities, and will fund 50 studentships.

Prosperity Partnerships are EPSRC's flagship approach to co-investing with business in long-term, use-inspired, basic research. They are five-year, multi-million pound research collaborations on topics of national and global importance which have been co-created by leading UK universities and businesses with a strong research presence in the UK.

Solliance Solar Research has announced a major accomplishment in the thermal stability of perovskite technology. The thermal stability was tested over a period of 3.000 hours. After this thermal stress test, the cell performance showed 93% of the initial performance.

Mehrdad Najafi, researcher at Solliance Solar Research, who will be presenting the work at the EU PVSEC in Belgium on September 27th, states: "Perovskite solar cells have attracted great attention due to their high power conversion efficiency Demonstrated stability and scale-ability, two very important topics within the Solliance collaboration, are the next steps towards successful commercialization of this technology. Our recent results show that it is possible to achieve stable perovskite solar cells upon prolonged exposure to thermal stress. After a further full-stack optimization and the introduction of a metal oxide layer by means of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), the thermal stability improved drastically compared with our previous reference: instead of losing over 50% of its performance after 100 hours at 85oC, we now demonstrate only 7% of performance loss after 3.000 hours at 85oC. This is an important stepping stone towards full IEC compliance".

imec, the world-leading research and innovation hub, recently presented an impressive thin-film tandem solar cell at the EU PVSEC conference. The cell consists of a top perovskite cell developed by imec within the partnerships of EnergyVille and Solliance, and a bottom CIGS cell from the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW, Stuttgart, Germany). The tandem cell resulting from this collaboration achieves a record efficiency of 24.6%.

The perovskite top cell in the tandem uses light in the visible part of the solar spectrum, while the light in the near-IR spectrum that passes through the perovskite cell is harvested by the underlying CIGS cell. In this way, the tandem cell significantly outperforms the stand-alone perovskite and CIGS cells. Moreover, both perovskite and CIGS cells are thin-film solar cells, paving the way to high efficiency flexible solar cells and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) solutions.

Researchers from KU Leuven in Belgium have demonstrated a promising direct X-ray detector design, based on a Cs₂AgBiBr₆ halide perovskite semiconductor. This perovskite is said to be ideal for direct X-ray conversion because of its ability to combine silver (Ag) and bismuth (Bi) heavy atomic nuclei ' for efficient X-ray absorption ' with their excellent charge formation and transport properties.

The researchers pointed out the all-inorganic double metal halide perovskite Cs₂AgBiBr₆ as one of the strongest candidates because of its high X-ray sensitivity and excellent structural stability. By optimizing the materials and lowering the operating temperature, they were even able to improve the X-ray sensitivity of the device tenfold, ultimately peaking near 500 times more sensitive than commercial direct conversion X-ray detectors on the market ' commonly based on pure selenium (Se).

Quantum Materials Corp., manufacturer of Cadmium-free quantum dots, recently announced it has developed a continuous flow manufacturing process to produce stable, low cost, high purity perovskite quantum dots (PQDs). Quantum Materials Corp has reportedly developed a high volume production process that produces extremely high purity PQDs with significantly improved stability.

PQDs have many unique properties that make them an ideal material for utilization in applications such as solar cells and displays. PQD-enhanced solar cells have demonstrated impressive conversion efficiencies, and as a phosphor replacement in flat panel displays, PQDs have the potential to provide industry excellent color gamut picture qualities due to their extremely narrow emission wavelength profile.

Researchers from Qatar, Switzerland and Italy have designed a composite perovskite material with a thin surface layer that repels water and protects against moisture-induced degradation. The team has managed to do this by allowing the self-assembly of two-dimensional perovskite on top of a three-dimensional perovskite in an inert atmosphere.

The composite perovskite did not decompose when kept in highly humid air for three days. The top layer of the 2D perovskite blocked water penetration into the 3D perovskite beneath it, preventing its degradation. Bare 3D perovskite completely degrades at a similar humidity.

An international research group reported boosting the efficiency of perovskite solar cells by adding silicon nanoparticles. Silicon particles do not absorb light, nor do they interact with other materials in the cell, according to ITMO University in St. Petersburg, which worked with St. Petersburg State University and scientists in Italy and the USA.

'Dielectric particles don't absorb light, so they don't heat up,' said ITMO researcher Aleksandra Furasova. 'They are chemically inert and don't affect the stability of the battery. Besides, being highly resonant, such particles can absorb more light of a wide range of wavelengths. Due to special layout characteristics, they don't damage the structure of the cells. These advantages allowed us to enhance cells efficiency up to almost 19%. So far, this is the best-known result for this particular perovskite material with incorporated nanoparticles'.

Greatcell Solar ("GSL") has provided an update on matters relating to its current financial position. The Company has agreed to sell 50% of its materials production assets to Dr. Yanek Hebting, the current GSL production manager who has served in that role for over ten years.

The deal anticipates a future 100% transfer of the production assets upon the completion of payments totaling AUD $1 million (almost USD $718,000) by 30 September 2019 and additional payments for FY2020 and FY2021 based on future earnings.

Researchers from The Photovolatic and Optoelectronic Device Group at Oxford University have shown that perovskite-based concentrator photovoltaic devices (CPVs) may solve the issue of prohibitively high production costs while providing devices that perform comparably to commercialized silicon-based devices.

The devices are based on metal halide perovskites. The Oxford researchers, led by Henry Snaith, focused their search on a material that would be stable under high irradiance, and found the mixed-halide perovskite Fa0.83Cs0.17PbI2.7Br0.3 fit them best. The group found that their devices, when cooled constantly to maintain close to room temperature, retained 90% of their original efficiency after 150 hours spent under 10 Suns (10 kW/m2) of concentrated light.

Ascent Solar Technologies, a manufacturer of flexible thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solutions, has been selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE), supported by the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), for two exclusive development projects.

As part of the awards, worth up to $100,000 each, Ascent Solar is to work towards commercialization of sputtered Zn(O,S) buffers in flexible CIGS solar cells and also development of next-generation, high-efficiency Perovskite/CIGS tandem cell. These projects are part of Ascent Solar's plans for next-generation lightweight and flexible solar cells.