A team of researchers, led by Professor Jacek Jasieniak from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science (Exciton Science) and Monash University, have reported success in producing next-gen perovskite solar cells that generate electricity while allowing light to pass through.

They are now investigating how the new technology could be built into commercial products with Viridian Glass, Australia's largest glass manufacturer. The semi-transparent solar cells can be incorporated into window glass and are viewed by the researchers as a "game-changer" that could transform architecture, urban planning and electricity generation.

Scientists from Nanchang University, Xi’an Jiao Tong University and Chongqing University in China, ICREA and ICN2 in Spain and North Carolina State University in the US have discovered that light can boost perovskites' ability to convert vibrations into electric currents, an effect called photoflexoelectricity, by more than 10,000%.

“This is the first time that the photoflexoelectric effect has been measured in any semiconductor,” says Gustau Catalán, a physicist at the Catalán Institution for Research and Advanced Studies. The property might not be exclusive to perovskites, he says, and might be found in other photovoltaic materials. This capability could someday yield new types of energy-harvesting devices that produce electricity from light and motion, such as body movements or the wasted mechanical vibrations of a motor.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has established a public-private consortium called the US-MAP for US Manufacturing of Advanced Perovskites Consortium, that aims to fast track the development of low-cost perovskite solar cells for the global marketplace.

The joint effort will aim at resolving a number of issues involving manufacturing and durability. US-MAP will also tackle sustainability issues, some of which relate to the use of lead and other metals.

Scientists from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea), Hanwha Solution (South Korea), Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (South Korea), Imperial College London, Stony Brook University and U.S. Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new material processing protocol to boost the operational stability of planar hybrid perovskite solar cells.

A schematic showing the vacuum and solvent process for removing the ionic defects that reduce the performance of hybrid perovskite solar cells.

Typically, thin-film devices are made in solution by sandwiching the active light-absorbing material in between top and bottom metal electrical contacts (electrodes) and organic semiconductor interlayers, which enhance the extraction of electrical currents to the contacts. In this case, before putting the final electrode on top, the scientists put the device in vacuum. In prior experiments, the team had noticed that removing and then redepositing the top electrode and interlayer reduced burn-in loss, a rapid decrease in efficiency at the beginning of light illumination. They subsequently confirmed that the high-vacuum environment used to deposit the electrode had contributed to this reduction. During vacuum curing, loose ions emerge from the perovskite and concentrate at the top interlayer. In a second processing step, the scientists used a chemical solvent to selectively wash away this top layer.

Iowa State University engineers, in a project partially supported by the National Science Foundation, have found a way to take advantage of perovskite’s useful properties while stabilizing the cells at high temperatures.

Vikram Dalal, an Iowa State University Professor in Engineering and corresponding author of the paper, said there are two key developments in the new solar cell technology: First, he said the engineers made some tweaks to the makeup of the perovskite material. They got rid of the organic components in the material – particularly cations, materials with extra protons and a positive charge – and substituted inorganic materials such as cesium. That made the material stable at higher temperatures.

Rice University researchers have created an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel. The platform integrates catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells that, when triggered by sunlight, produce electricity. The current flows to the catalysts that turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, with a sunlight-to-hydrogen efficiency as high as 6.7%.

A schematic and electron microscope cross-section show the structure of an integrated, solar-powered catalyst to split water into hydrogen fuel and oxygen. Illustration by Jia Liang

This sort of catalysis isn't new, but the lab packaged a perovskite layer and the electrodes into a single module that, when dropped into water and placed in sunlight, produces hydrogen with no further input.