An international team of researchers, led by Aram Amassian at North Carolina State University, has demonstrated the construction of field-effect transistors using a single crystal, hybrid perovskite semiconductor.

While the design of perovskite solar cells has matured to the point of near-commercialization, making hybrid perovskites function as field-effect transistors has been more of a challenge. This is in part due to the fact that perovskite films typically consist of multiple crystals with random orientations that include grain boundaries and various kinds of defects in their atomic crystal lattices. These often limit how well charge carriers (electrons or “holes”) can move through them.

Researchers from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have developed perovskite LEDs (PeLED) which are flexible enough to be folded. A transparent material was used in the electrode of the device as a replacement for metal to ensure translucency.

Flexible translucent PeLED maintains performance even when bending curvature is small

According to the team, PeLED is a kind of light emitting diode (LED) that emits light by injecting current into a compound. This device uses a perovskite material as an active layer that emits light by receiving electricity, and its advantages include high electron mobility, good color purity, and easy color control. However, conventional PeLEDs are low in flexibility and opaque due to limitations of metal electrodes.

German and Greek scientists are working with industrial partners on the technological feasibility of making solar modules based on perovskite absorbers. The prototypes should be freely configurable in size, shape and color. The research project Printed Perovskite Modules for Building Integrated Photovoltaics – “Printpero” – is aimed at developing highly efficient and cost-effective solar modules.

The panels proposed would incorporate perovskite-based thin-film solar cells which achieve efficiencies of more than 23% in the laboratory, said the coordinator of the German-Greek research project, Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).