The Perovskite-Info newsletter (August 17, 2021)

Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, has announced that it will team up with fellow Australian in-space transportation provider Space Machines Company (SMC) to test the potential of its perovskite-based solar cells on SMC’s spacecraft Optimus-1, due to be launched next year by Gilmour Space Technologies.

CSIRO is pursuing the development of printable solar cells that are lightweight, thin and semi-transparent. The science agency has been researching both organic PV (OPV) and perovskite solar cells. Printable ‘solar inks’ are deposited onto flexible plastic films that can then be connected to make solar panels of significant size.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently seeking research proposals for the development of x-ray technology capable of what the agency calls "extreme photo imaging."

As part of its Extreme Photon Imaging Capability - Hard X-Ray (EPIC-HXR) project, DARPA said it is looking to develop uncooled hard x-ray imagers based on advanced nanocrystalline materials with high spatial and energy resolution, including quantum dot and perovskite materials.

A joint research team, affiliated with Korea's UNIST, has developed a novel method capable of controlling the brightness and wavelength of quantum dots (QDs). The work was led by Professor Kyoung-Duck Park in the Department of Physics at UNIST, in collaboration with Professor Sohee Jeong in the Department of Energy Science from Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU).

The research team demonstrated the tip-induced dynamic control of strain, bandgap, and quantum yield of single CsPbBr_xI_3–x pQDs by using a controllable plasmonic nanocavity combined with tip-enhanced photoluminescence (TEPL) spectroscopy.