Reports out of China suggest that a perovskite photovoltaic cell production line has gone into production in Quzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.

The 40-hectare factory was reportedly funded by Microquanta Semiconductor and expected to produce more than 200,000 square meters of photovoltaic glass before the end of 2020.

Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and Jilin University in China worked together to investigate a highly promising anode material for future high-performance batteries - lithium lanthanum titanate with a perovskite crystal structure (LLTO). As the team reported, LLTO can improve the energy density, power density, charging rate, safety, and cycle life of batteries without requiring a decrease of the particle size from micro to nano scale.

The demand for electric vehicles is increasing, accompanied by a growing need for smart grids that ensure a sustainable energy supply. These and other mobile and stationary technologies require suitable batteries. For now, lithium-ion batteries (LIB) tend to be the best ones to meet the requirement of storing as much energy as possible in the smallest possible space with the lowest possible weight.

Scientists at the University of North Carolina (UNC) have taken on a known perovskite issue - the annealing (heating and slow cooling) process. Many fabrication processes take too long, presenting a significant bottleneck in mass production. The UNC scientists estimate that for long annealing times to keep up with the speed at which perovskites films are produced, manufacturers would need a 500-meter-long oven.

The UNC scientists say that cutting this annealing process down to three minutes at 100^o C could lead to better performance. The group puts this down to a previously unknown de-doping process within the perovskite, which ultimately leads to lower recombination losses and better efficiency.

Researchers at the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China have developed a technique that greatly enhances perovskite QLEDs' performance and stability compared to single interface processing.

The structure of QLED based on QD films passivated without (b) and with passivation (c). Image from Nature Communications

The team proposed a bilateral passivation strategy through passivating the top and bottom interface of the QD film with organic molecules.