A team of scientists led by researchers at ITMO in Russia has proposed a quick and affordable method to create miniature optical chips in a Petri dish.

Miniature visible light devices use GaP waveguides embedded in perovskite light sources

Today's optical chips operate in the infrared (IR) range. "To make the devices even more compact, we need to work in the visible range," says Sergey Makarov, chief researcher at ITMO's Department of Physics and Engineering, "as the size of a chip depends on the wavelength of its emission."

A team of researchers led by Nanchang University in China tested a polymer-based hole transport layer for flexible perovskite solar cells, using a glue to attach it to the active perovskite. The team was able to assemble the cells into a small flexible module suitable for wearable solar applications, and says its design was inspired by the structure and movements of human vertebrae.

Bio-inspired vertebral design for scalable and flexible perovskite solar cells. Image from Nature Communications

The team reported that the solar cell measured 1.01cm² and achieved a stabilized efficiency of 19.87%. The cell was tested for 3000 hours under one-sun illumination at room temperature and was shown to retain 85% of its initial efficiency.

The New Energy Center at National Taiwan University and Taiwanese PV production equipment provider E-Sun Precision Industrial have developed new production equipment to manufacture large-area p-i-n type perovskite solar cells.

Researchers from both entities said the machine can facilitate the production of low-cost perovskite cells through the MK-20 once-through process. The manufacturing process, which is based on slot-die coater and fast thermal processor (FTP) tech, is fully automatic and can currently handle small-quantity sample production.

Australian National University (ANU) researchers have managed to push forward the efficiency of solar-to-hydrogen production that bypasses electrolysers and avoids AC/DC power conversion and transmission losses. They have recently managed to reach 17.6% efficiency, achieved with perovskite-silicon tandem absorbers, and they say their process is open to further refinement that could see clean hydrogen production become cost competitive with other fuels, including brown hydrogen and gas, more quickly than expected.

Perovskite-Si dual-absorber tandem PEC cell for self-driven water splitting. a) Schematic showing a perovskite solar cell wired to a Si photo-cathode in tandem, and a DSA anode. b) A representative general energy band diagram. Image: ANU

Australian National University (ANU) researchers, in a newly-released study lead by Dr. Siva Krishna Karuturi and Dr. Heping Shen, state that although PV modules have become a commercially viable method large-scale renewable energy generation, “Achieving global renewable energy transition further relies on addressing the intermittency of solar electricity through the development of transportable energy storage means.”