Researchers design smart windows with perovskite PV cells

Researchers from China's Nanjing Tech University have developed a smart solar window technology, based on a photovoltachromic device that is able to achieve high transmittance and be self-adaptable to control indoor brightness and temperature.

The device was assembled using a full solution process in an architecture incorporating glass, a fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) layer, a perovskite-based PV cell, an electrochromic gel, another FTO layer, and glass.

Photovoltachromic devices (PVCDs) are capable of enabling adjustable transparency glazing and, at the same time, generate electricity by means of the PV effect. This technology has been so far applied to the design of self-powered smart windows for buildings and vehicles but it is still at an early stage of development.

The researchers in China have now taken a further step by developing a solar window based on a photovoltachromic device that combines a full-transparent perovskite photovoltaic device and electrochromic components based on ion-gel in a vertical tandem architecture without any intermediated electrode.

'This full-transparent monolithic smart window possesses not only full advantages of self-power, on-demand control and self-adaptive based on solar-irradiances, but also good features including excellent visible transparency and color neutrality, high adjustable range on transmittance and temperature, as well as repeatable serviceability,' the scientists stated

The Chinese group used visibly transparent perovskite and flexible electrochromic ion-gel to connect two terminals of PV element and two terminals of the electrochemical element in a four-terminal configuration. The perovskite layer was based on hybrid methylamine lead chloride (MAPbCl₃) perovskite film prepared by a spin coating method.

The design, according to the researchers, offers the possibility of building large-area devices with a surface of approximately 36 cm². The electrochromic gel has a thickness of around 90 μm and the PV component of around 800'nm. The PV module consists of a 300'nm electron transport layer (ETL), a 350'nm perovskite layer, and a 40'nm hole-transport layer (HTL). When the PVCD is hit by sunlight, the PV module provides voltage to charge the electrochromic module.

'By optimizing the halide-diffusion period for perovskite, we successfully achieved a self-adaptable adjustment on transmittances depending on varying solar irradiation intensities for this monolithic PVCD,' the study reads. The PVCD is claimed to achieve a high pristine transmittance up to 76% and to be self-adaptable to control indoor brightness and temperature automatically depending on different solar irradiances.