Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have announced an impressive achievement - a silicon/perovskite tandem solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 27.7%.

Professor Kylie Catchpole says this would only need to improve slightly - to around 30% - before the technology could be rolled out around the world. "In comparison, typical solar panels being installed on rooftops at the moment have an efficiency around 20%" Professor Catchpole said.

Physicists at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have used perovskite materials to alter a magnetic bit’s polarity with light, potentially opening the door to denser and faster disk drives using magneto-optical technology.

Researchers László Forró, Bálint Náfrádi and Endre Horváth suggest magneto-optical drives using this method could be physically smaller, faster and cheaper than today’s disk drives. They also say it is an alternative to heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR).

Scientists from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia and University of Toronto, have developed a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell which they claim showed excellent operational stability under accelerated tests.

The device was made by combining solution-processed, micrometer-thick perovskite top cells with fully textured silicon heterojunction bottom cells.