Researchers at KU Leuven have explained how a promising type of perovskites can be stabilized. The team has developed a process in which the crystals turn black, enabling them to absorb sunlight. This is said to be necessary in order to use them in solar panels.

"Silicon forms a very strong, rigid crystal. If you press on it, it won't change its shape. On the other hand, perovskites are much softer and more malleable," explains Dr. Julian Steele of the KU Leuven Centre for Membrane Separations, Adsorption, Catalysis, and Spectroscopy for Sustainable Solutions (cMACS). "We can stabilize them under various lab conditions, but at room temperature, the black perovskite atoms really want to reshuffle, change structure, and ultimately turn the crystal yellow".

A team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis has found what may be a more stable, less toxic semiconductor for solar applications using a novel double perovskite oxide, discovered through data analytics and quantum-mechanical calculations.

An atomic model of KBaTeBiO6 (left), scanning transmission electron micrograph showing the atomic structure of KBaTeBiO6, along with snapshot of the synthesized powder (right). Credit: WUSTL

Rohan Mishra, assistant professor of mechanical engineering & materials science in the McKelvey School of Engineering, led an interdisciplinary, international team that discovered the new semiconductor, made up of potassium, barium, tellurium, bismuth and oxygen (KBaTeBiO₆). The lead-free double perovskite oxide was one of an initial 30,000 potential bismuth-based oxides. Of those 30,000, only about 25 were known compounds.