2017 is soon over - and it was another exciting year for the perovskite industry. Researchers continue to innovate and develop more efficient solar panels and new and innovative perovskite applications are being discovered.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on Perovskite-Info in 2017, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. Perovskite-graphene large area solar cell achieves record efficiency (Mar 7)
2. KBNNO perovskites may be able to turn sunlight, heat and movement into electricity all at once (Feb 9)
3. Australian team reports "new world efficiency record" with perovskite solar cells (Apr 5)
4. NTU team printes flexible perovskite solar cells (Jun 4)
5. Perovskites assist in creating a new type of solar cell (Jan 29)
6. ASU and Stanford team create high efficiency perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell (Feb 21)
7. Microquanta reports 15.24% efficiency perovskite-based PV modules (Mar 14)
8. Dyesol receives a $2 million grant for commercializing perovskite solar cell technology (Feb 8)
9. Solliance demonstrates industrially-applicable roll-to-roll processes for the production of perovskite-based solar cells (Mar 14)
10. Researchers use carbon nanotubes to improve the stability of perovskite-based solar cells (Mar 19)

WPI-MANA (World Premier International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics) at NIMS in Japan has developed perovskite-based high-performance dielectric nanofilms that may revolutionize next-gen electronics.

The team created the high-performance dielectric nanofilms by using 2D perovskite nanosheets (Ca2Nam−3NbmO3m+1; m = 3–6) as building blocks. Perovskite oxides have tremendous potential for controlling a variety of electronic properties including high-κ dielectric and ferroelectric.

Researchers from South Korea have developed a new system that uses perovskite materials for producing hydrogen from water, which they say overcomes several of the common challenges and produces gas more efficiently than other water electrolysis systems.

The new device was developed by a research team consisting of scientists from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) and Sookmyung Women's University, and is based on an existing design called a solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC). These are similar to other electrolyzers in that an electrical current splits water into its constituent molecules – hydrogen and oxygen – which can then be harvested. The difference is that in this setup, both electrodes are solid-state, as is the electrolyte that carries the ions between them.

Researchers from EPFL have produced a data-driven proposal for standardizing the measurements of perovskite solar cell stability and degradation. The work aims to create clarity and consensus in the field and overcome a major obstacle on the way to commercializing perovskite photovoltaics.

One of the greatest challenges on this road is stability: to be commercially viable, perovskite-based solar cells must be able to maintain their efficiency over time, meaning that they must not degrade significantly over 25 years of use. “As a first-order approximation, we are talking about stabilities of several years for the most stable perovskite solar cells,” says Konrad Domanksi, first author on the paper. “We still need an increase of an order of magnitude to reach the stabilities of silicon cells”.