The Perovskite-Info newsletter (December 21, 2021)

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, developed a new process for creating FAPbI₃.

One of the challenges with making FAPbI₃ is that the high temperatures (150°C) used can cause the crystals within the material to ‘stretch’, making them strained, which favors the yellow phase that isn’t suitable for solar cells. While previous reports have used small amounts of additional chemicals/additives to help form FAPbI₃ under these conditions, it can be very hard to control the uniformity and amounts of these additives when making solar cells at a very large scale, and the long-term impact of including them is not yet known.

Uppsala University spinoff Evolar has entered into a joint development project with an undisclosed Indian silicon solar module manufacturer to develop highly efficient perovskite/silicon tandem solar modules for the South Asian market.

“Evolar is developing a unique perovskite-based PV power booster technology that adds 25 percent power to conventional solar panels. Moreover, it is easy to integrate the perovskite thin film process into current production set-ups. We firmly believe that the combination of our perovskite-based technology and this manufacturing partnership, can play a key role in strengthening India’s domestic solar module supply,” says Mats Ljunggren, CEO of Evolar AB.

Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have experimentally synthesized a nitride perovskite material that previously only existed in theory and measured its properties in collaboration with researchers at the Colorado School of Mines.

The new material could theoretically be used for microelectromechanical devices such as the ones used in telecommunications and other areas. Nitride perovskites have been computationally predicted to be stable, but not many have been synthesized, and their experimental properties remain largely unknown, the researchers explained in their new article.

Researchers from the Imperial College of London and University College London have demonstrated the photovoltaic-boosting effect that phosphorene nanoribbons (PNRs) can bring to perovskite solar cells. When applied in tandem with a perovskite solar cell, PNR-boosted cells achieved an efficiency above 21%, which the researchers defined as "on par with traditional silicon cell output levels".

PNRs, first produced in 2019, have many theoretical use cases, including enhancing batteries, biomedical sensors, and quantum computing. The PNRs directly aided the perovskite cells' hole mobility, improving overall efficiency.

Researchers from Innovation Lab HySPRINT at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU) have used an advanced inkjet printing technique to produce a large range of photodetector devices based on a hybrid perovskite semiconductor.

By mixing three inks, the researchers were able to precisely tune the semiconductor properties during the printing process. Inkjet printing is already an established fabrication method, allowing fast and cheap solution processing. Extending the inkjet capabilities from large area coating towards combinatorial material synthesis could open the door to new possibilities for the fabrication of different kinds of electronic components in a single printing step.