Oxford Photovoltaics and Meyer Burger Technology have entered into a strategic partnership and signed an exclusive cooperation agreement to jointly accelerate the development of mass production technology for perovskite on silicon heterojunction (HJT) tandem solar cells.

Meyer Burger and Oxford PV agreed to combine Meyer Burger's leading HJT and SmartWire Connection technology with Oxford PV's perovskite solar cell technology. Meyer Burger will sell a 200 MW HJT line for the pilot production of tandem cells that will be ramped up by the end of 2020 in Oxford PV's Brandenburg an der Havel facility. The initial tandem solar cell efficiency target for the 200 MW pilot production line will be 27%. The characteristics of Meyer Burger's HJT cells make them the perfect bottom cells for Oxford PV's perovskite top cell layers.

University of Groningen scientists, led by Professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics Maria Antonietta Loi, have designed a way to use the perovskite formamidinium lead iodide with a blade and a dipping solution, solving the problem of getting the correct stable crystal structure.

"This formamidinium lead iodide material has very good characteristics, but the A position formamidinium ion causes instability in the structure," explains Loi. Three-dimensional films made from this material most often turn out to be a mixture of a photoactive and a photoinactive phase, the latter being detrimental to the final application. Loi therefore set her Ph.D. student Sampson Adjokatse to work to find a solution.

Researchers from the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg in Germany, the University of Munich (LMU) and Newcastle University in the UK have developed a practical tool for solution-based perovskite processing.

The team developed a unique method based on the deposition of size-controlled Al2O3 or SiO2 nanoparticles. By enhancing the surface energy, they act as a universal wetting agent. This allows perovskite precursor solutions to be spread evenly over various substrates, including problematic hydrophobic Si-wafers or fullerene self-assembled monolayers (C60-SAMs).