Oxford PV has announced it has moved its UK-based headquarters and R&D facilities to a new location in Oxford, UK. The new site consolidates and strengthens Oxford PV’s UK-based perovskite photovoltaic research and development activities, by providing a larger, controlled laboratory environment, with ample space for expansion of its equipment and expertise in the future.

Oxford PV’s experienced research and development team at the site will continue to focus on advancing its perovskite photovoltaic technology. Additionally, Oxford PV’s UK team will continue to support the transfer of its advanced lab based perovskite on silicon tandem solar cell technology to industrial scale processes and equipment, an activity that takes place at the company’s pilot line, in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, in close collaboration with its joint development partner – a major manufacturer of silicon solar cells and modules.

University of Alberta scientists have found calcium silicate perovskite at Earth's surface. "Nobody has ever managed to keep this mineral stable at the Earth's surface," said Graham Pearson, a professor in the University of Alberta's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate. He explained the mineral is found deep inside Earth's mantle, at 700 kilometers.

"The only possible way of preserving this mineral at the Earth's surface is when it's trapped in an unyielding container like a diamond," he explained. "Based on our findings, there could be as much as zetta tonnes (1021) of this perovskite in deep Earth".

UK-based Ossila provides components, equipment and materials to enable faster and smarter organic electronics research and discovery. Ossila provides both materials and equipment for perovskite researchers, and the company's lead perovskite scientist, Dr. Jonathan Griffin, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had for him.

Thanks to improved knowledge about salt-solvent interactions, single crystals of perovskites can now be grown. Pictured above are several single-crystal MAPbBr perovskites, alongside the seed crystals used to grow these crystals

Dr. Griffin holds nearly a decade of experience working in organic photovoltaic research and over 5 years of working with perovskites. At Ossila, Jonathan works on technical support for several material ranges, including perovskites, organic photovoltaics, graphene and other 2-D materials. He is also involved in the development of new test equipment and product ranges. Prior to this, he worked in a postdoctoral research position at the University of Sheffield.

Q: Thank you for your time Dr. Griffin. Can you detail for us Ossila's perovskite product range in general?

Researchers at Cornell used theoretical techniques to predict that using intense mid-infrared laser light on a titanium perovskite can dynamically induce a magnetic phase transition – taking the material from its ferromagnetic ground state to a hidden anti-ferromagnetic phase. This dramatic shift could have useful applications, particularly in optical information processing.

“It would be a kind of optical switch,” the researchers said. “You have a material where it’s magnetic and ‘non-magnetic.’ It’s going between those two states with light”.