An international team of researchers led by Kyushu University and Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has demonstrated stable, continuous lasing at room temperature for over an hour perovskite materials by managing to overcome a phenomenon that has so far prevented such long operation.

Recent developments in perovskite research have made them attractive for lasers because they can be fabricated from solution at low cost to have tunable colors and excellent stability, but a phenomenon termed lasing death causes lasing under constant operation at room temperature to stop after a few minutes for reasons that have been unclear.

South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) recently released a new roadmap for the domestic solar module industry that puts a strong focus on solar applications.

According to the document, domestic solar manufacturers and research institutes expect tandem solar cell technology based on silicon and perovskite to be the most promising candidates for PV products of the next generation. The Korean semiconductor and display industries, according to the MOTIE, may play a decisive role in this transition by providing its expertise in silicon product and thin film development.

University of North Texas professor Anupama Kaul has received a $474,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research under the Department of Defense to develop new perovskite-based solar cell technology.

Kaul, who directs the Nanoscale Materials and Devices Lab and the PACCAR Technology Institute, intends to utilize perovskite materials that are extremely efficient at absorbing incoming light. Many perovskites used in solar cell research are made with solutions, and yet, remarkably, the solution processed materials are still highly absorbing to incoming light. The main advantage of solution processing is that it greatly reduces manufacturing costs of solar cells compared to the sophisticated and expensive infrastructure needed to make them with crystalline materials.

Poland-based PSC developer Saule Technologies recently announced a partnership with Columbus Energy, the largest service provider on the market of photovoltaic installations in Poland.

As part of this partnership, Saule Technologies received a €10 Million investment from Columbus Energy.