A Purdue University-led research team discovered that adding a rigid bulky molecule – bithiophenylethylammonium – to the surface of a perovskite stabilizes the movement of ions, preventing chemical bonds from breaking easily. The researchers also demonstrated that adding this molecule makes a perovskite stable enough to form clean atomic junctions with other perovskites, allowing them to stack and integrate.

“If an engineer wanted to combine the best parts about perovskite A with the best parts about perovskite B, that typically can’t happen because the perovskites would just mix together,” said Brett Savoie, a Purdue assistant professor of chemical engineering. “In this case, you really can get the best of A and B in a single material. That is completely unheard of.”

An international team of scientists recently developed a new composite material based on perovskite nanocrystals to fabricate miniature light sources with improved performance.

Protection of perovskite nanocrystals within porous glass microspheres made it possible to increase their stability by almost 3 times. Moreover, the subsequent coating of these particles with polymers resulted in the fabrication of water-dispersible luminescent microspheres based on CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals. This method of fabrication is especially important for the implementation of perovskite nanocrystals in diverse biological applications.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have used an oxide of perovskite to create an oxygen electrode for use in electrochemical cells used for hydrolysis-based hydrogen production.

The researchers claim the perovskite oxide could help such cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity without additional hydrogen.

EU H2020-funded project PeroCUBE aims at developing flexible, lightweight perovskite-based electronics, creating new commercial opportunities for the lighting, energy and telecom industries. Coordinated by the Swiss CSEM, this consortium brings together 14 industrial and academic partners from 10 European countries.

PeroCUBE has two main objectives: producing efficient, simple and low-cost light sources closer to natural light sources and supporting the development of more stable and low-cost solar panels . By combining these promising technologies, PeroCUBE seeks to develop a new generation of Visual Light Communication (VLC) and LiFi (light fidelity) standard, widening the scope for human centric lighting (HCL), data transmission, wearables and IOT applications that do not cause harm to humans nor the environment.

An international collaboration led by Antonio Abate, HZB, and Zhao-Kui Wang, Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, China, has achieved a breakthrough that opens up a path to non-toxic perovskite-based solar cells that provides stable performance over a long period.

They use tin instead of lead but have created a two-dimensional structure by inserting organic groups within the material, which leads to so-called 2D Ruddlesden-Popper phases.

Researchers from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics and the South Colombian University in Colombia have developed a flexible perovskite solar cell for indoor applications said to function under illumination of 100-500 lux.

The 100 micrometer-thick device was manufactured using roll-to-roll sputtering with an indium tin-oxide coating on ultra-thin flexible glass with transmittance of more than 80%, sheet resistance of 13 ohms-per-square and bendability surpassing 1,600 bending procedures at 20.5mm curvature.