Researchers at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have shown how imploding bubbles in a solution can grow single crystals of perovskites especially suited for solar applications.

The researchers explain that hybrid perovskite materials can easily be fabricated on a large scale from a solvent solution. However, this process typically produces polycrystalline perovskite films that have a smaller solar light conversion efficiency than monocrystalline materials because the boundary between crystalline grains leads to losses. In particular, growth of single-crystalline perovskite solar cell films has not yet been achieved on top of other materials, which is a requirement for practical devices.