Perovskite researcher at Stuttgart University receives €1.5 million grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a €1.5 million Starting Grant to Professor Michael Saliba from the University of Stuttgart to support his research on perovskite thin films, where he will work on using light to control uncontrolled film growth.

Professor Saliba heads the Institute for Photovoltaics (IPV) in the German university. He has secured the grant for his LOCAL-HEAT project (Controlled Local Heating to Crystallize Solution-based Semiconductors for Next-Generation Solar Cells and Optoelectronics). He believes his research will enable the development of highly efficient perovskite solar cells that maintain their stability over several decades.

Saliba will work on controlling the fundamental nucleation and crystallization kinetics of semiconductor films for the liquid-to-solid phase transition, by using light. In the current processes, this transition often leads to uncontrolled film growth with ragged grain boundaries of different sizes which may result into 'undesirable' effects as water penetration.

'A lack of high-quality materials with large, controlled grains hinders the development of solution-processed semiconductors,' according to the team.

Saliba's project aims to create local heat packages, with the help of 2 new methods, for controlled grains and thin films. One of the methods relies on laser beams that can be precisely adjusted, and the other relates to thermoplasmonic heating of metallic nanoparticles that turn incoming light into localized heat.

'LOCAL-HEAT will thus revolutionize the production of solution-based materials and enable the development of new key technological applications in optoelectronics and medical technology,' explained Saliba.