India-based researchers have recently designed a novel synthesis procedure that can produce highly uniform luminescent perovskite nanocrystals with uncommon shapes and surface morphologies.

Their work broadens the range of strategies that can be used for tuning the optical and photonic properties of these materials, which are widely studied for use in solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and electronic displays.

Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE researchers have examined the question of which silicon bottom cell will be most suitable for use in tandem cells. The team evaluated multiple silicon cell concepts based on both cost and efficiency in serving as the bottom layer in a perovskite-silicon tandem cell.

Investigated perovskite silicon tandem concepts featuring four different silicon bottom cells (P E RC, TOPerc, TOPCon2, and SHJ) and two different interconnection concepts (ReCO and SiT). Image from article

The study, based on both simulation and experimental work, details advantages to various approaches with the silicon cell and concludes that in almost every case, perovskite-silicon tandem cells have the potential to bring solar costs down below what could be achieved with silicon alone.

Joint research work between Chemnitz University of Technology and Technische Universität Dresden has gained better understanding of the ionic defect landscape in metal halide perovskites. The researchers were able to identify essential properties of the ions that make up these materials. The migration of the ions leads to the presence of defects in the material, which have a negative effect on the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells. The working groups found that the motion of all observed ions, despite their different properties (such as positive or negative charge), follows a common transport mechanism and also allows the assignment of defects and ions (known as the Meyer-Neldel rule).

Artistic representation of an ionic defect landscape in the perovskites. Image by TU Dresden

The advantageous properties of metal halide perovskites include their high light-harvesting capacity and their remarkable ability to efficiently convert solar energy into electrical energy. Another special feature of these materials is that both charge carriers and ions are mobile within them. While charge carrier transport is a fundamental process required for the photovoltaic operation of the solar cell, ionic defects and ion transport often have undesirable consequences on the performance of these devices. Despite significant progress in this field of research, many questions regarding the physics of ions in perovskite materials remain open. The team in this work aimed to gain a better understanding of these structures, and has succeeded in making a big step forward.

The EPFL launched a new project, supported by the Valais State Government with 5 million Swiss Francs, to realize a "demonstrator project" at EPFL-Sion Campus Energypolis.

Sized at the canton or district level, these installations will enable the testing of technologies developed in the laboratories of EPFL Valais-Wallis in real conditions, with the collaboration of local partners and the HES-SO Valais-Wallis.

UK-based Quantum Solutions published this video below that demonstrates its latest perovskite QD film for LCD color conversion:

Quantum Solutions now offers its QDot SharpGreen Perovskite QDs Film, which is a polymer composite with embedded QDot SharpGreen Perovskite QDs. It is designed to be used in LCD backlighting units and sensor devices for X-rays and UV lights. The material has green emission 520-535 nm (depending on the concentration), high PLQY (up to 80-100 %) and narrow FWHM ( 70-80 % of initial photoluminescence within 1000 hours of exposing by heat (85 °C and blue light 10 mW/cm² exposure) and high relative humidity (90 % RH at 60 °C).

A Florida State University research team has addressed perovskite solar cells' stability issue by mixing the old with the new. Professor of Chemistry Biwu Ma and his team published a new study that shows if you add a layer of ancient organic pigment to a perovskite solar cell, it increases the stability and efficiency of the cell.

'Pigments are abundant, low cost and robust,' Ma said. 'When we combine them with perovskites, we can generate new high-performance hybrid systems. It's using the old with the new, and together they produce something really exciting.'

An HZB team at BESSY II recently analyzed the crystallization processes within optimized inks used for the production of metal-halide perovskite thin-films for photovoltaic modules . A model has also been developed to assess the kinetics of the crystallization processes for different solvent mixtures. The results could be of high importance for the further development of perovskite inks for industrial-scale deposition processes of these semiconductors.

For the production of larger area photovoltaic modules, the team of Dr. Eva Unger develops printing and coating processes in which the perovskite semiconductor is processed from inks containing the precursors dissolved in solvents. The composition of the ink determines the material formation mechanism with the solvent affecting the process by its rheological properties, evaporation rate and participation in intermediate phases. "Our research question in this project was: How can we rationalize the difference in crystallization kinetics when using different solvents," explains Unger, who heads the Young Investigator Group Hybrid Materials Formation and Scaling.

An international researchers team recently found that a new 'double perovskite' material could become a more environmentally friendly platform for spintronics devices thanks to its lead-free nature. While the material in its current form is only magnetic below 30 K ' too low for practical applications ' developers at Linköping University in Sweden, together with colleagues in the US, the Czech Republic, Japan, Australia and China, say that their preliminary experiments are a promising step towards making rapid and energy-efficient information storage devices from this novel optoelectronic material.

Recently, researchers discovered that lead halide perovskites display interesting spin properties thanks to lead's strong spin-orbit coupling. This coupling links the motion of an electron to its quantum spin, and its strength determines how much the intrinsic spin of an electron will interact with the magnetic field induced as the electron moves through the material. Such a coupling is therefore important not only for the magnetic properties of a material, but also for the performance of any spintronics devices.