A collaboration between Penn State, Seoul National University, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the University of Tennessee, the University of Cambridge, the Universitat de Valencia, the Harbin Institute of Technology, and the University of Oxford has yielded an understanding of how a class of electroluminescent perovskite materials can be designed to work more efficiently.

This latest work is based on a past endeavor by Penn theoretical chemist Andrew M. Rappe and Tae-Woo Lee at Seoul National University to develop a theory to help explain experimental results. The material that was studied was formamidinium lead bromide, a type of metal-halide perovskite nanocrystal (PNC). Results collected by the Lee group seemed to indicate that green LEDs made with this material were working more efficiently than expected. “As soon as I saw their data, I was amazed by the correlation between the structural, optical, and light-efficiency results. Something special had to be going on,” says Rappe.

Venture Kick, a private consortium that aims to push forward young entrepreneurs with high-potential business ideas, has selected Perovskia, a nascent perovskite-based solar cells company, to receive CHF40,000 (around USD$45,170).

Perovskia is a young startup that has developed a digital printing technology to fabricate efficient and stable perovskite solar cells with custom design capability. The fabrication techniques they developed are reportedly highly efficient and flexible, which could reduce the production cost considerably, even for customized items. The team plans to use its technology to cater to the diverse needs of Internet of Things, electronic goods, sensors, and ultimately designer solar tiles industries.

An international group of researchers, led by the University of Padova in Italy, has designed a hole extraction layer with water-splitting additives to reduce the impact of moisture in perovskite solar devices. They reported that the method ensured a power conversion efficiency of more than 9% in perovskite cells stored for a month in a water-saturated atmosphere.

There is an ongoing search for moisture stability in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), as protecting the perovskite layer from moisture is key to preventing excess water from forming on the layer itself and affecting overall performance. The new proposed solution to this issue integrates water-splitting (WS) hydrophobic layers to the perovskite absorber of a standard perovskite cell. The ancillary layers can purportedly convert incoming water into oxygen and hydrogen.

An international team of scientists, including ones from King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) and University of Toronto, set out to increase the performance of solar panels by creating a bifacial (two-sided) tandem solar cell, made of perovskite and silicon materials.

Image credit: U of T

In outdoor environments, light primarily comes directly from the sun. Conventional tandem solar cells can already convert this light into electricity more efficiently compared to traditional silicon-only solar cells by absorbing additional wavelengths of light. Now, the researchers have realized that even more energy can be gathered using a two-sided tandem configuration. Light reflected and scattered from the ground — referred to as “albedo” — can also be collected to significantly increase the current of a tandem solar cell. The new research outlines how the team engineered the perovskite/silicon device to exceed the currently accepted performance limits for the tandem configuration.

China-based Zhijing Nanotech develops perovskite perovskite-QD film (PQDF) technologies for the display industry, and the company demonstrated its first prototypes in 2018.

Perovskite-Info has talked with the company's management, which updated us that it recently concluded a successful pilot with TCL. TCL, in collaboration with Zhijing Nanotech, produced 500 75-inch QD-enhanced LCD TVs (TCL 4K 75M10) with Zhijing's PQDF films. The company reports that the TVs featured a wide color gamut, 147% BT709 - which is higher than most QD TV's on the market, and higher than TCL's original 75M10 TVs.