A team of scientists in Japan has used carbon nanotubes to reliably create perovskite crystal layers free of defects and holes. Their findings could improve the performance of perovskite-based solar panels.

In this study, researchers led by Professor Keiko Waki at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, found a way to bond carbon nanotubes (CNT) to perovskite to improve the latter's efficiency and stability.

A research team led by Tan Zhi Kuang from the Department of Chemistry and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) has developed perovskite-based high-efficiency, near-infrared LEDs that can cover an area of 900 mm² using low-cost solution-processing methods.

Infrared LEDs are generally small point sources, and according to the institute this limits their efficacy if illumination is required in larger areas when in close proximity, such as those found on wearable devices.

By tuning the structure of a 2D perovskite solar material, researchers from KAUST and the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown they can prolong the lifetime of highly energetic hot carriers generated by light striking the material. The approach could offer a way to capture solar energy more efficiently.

"As an alternative to 3D hybrid perovskites, 2D hybrid perovskites have improved stability and moisture resistance," says Jun Yin, a member of Omar Mohammed's and Osman Bakr's research groups. However, hot carrier cooling in these materials has not been extensively studied, adds Partha Maity, a postdoctoral fellow on the KAUST team.

A joint research team from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) and the Korea Photonics Technology Institute has developed perovskite-enabled hybrid flexible copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells that can convert all ultraviolet, visible and infrared sunlight into electric energy.

Current flexible CIGS thin-film solar cells are limited by a short wavelength band, from 300 to 390 nanometers, which is absorbed from the transparent electrodes at the top of the solar cell. They cannot convert short wavelength solar energy into electricity. The research team succeeded in developing CsPbBr₃ perovskite high-efficiency fluorescents that light up visible light bands by absorbing the light in the ultraviolet region, and applied them to the top of the transparent photoelectric layer of CIGS solar cells.