Perovskite

A research team in Australia has used a lamination technique known as cold isostatic pressing (CIP) to build a perovksite solar cell based on a flexible bilayer electrode made of carbon and silver that can reportedly compete with gold-carbon eletrode based counterparts in terms of efficiency and stability.

A Chinese research team has modified the absorber of a conventional perovskite solar cell with potassium trifluoromethanesulfonate (KTFS) and found that the additive improved the device performance and stability. The cell’s perovskite film reportedly showed less lead defects and lower J-V hysteresis.

Researchers from the U.S. and South Korea have developed a method to make high-quality perovskite films at room temperature. The film was tested in a conventional perovskite solar cell architecture and the result was a power conversion efficiency of exceeding 24%.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has provided Tandem PV with $4.7 million in funds to advance the commercialization of the company’s thin-film solar technology.

Solertix claims to have reduced yield losses in cell-to-module scaling by utilizing ultranarrow interconnection of 19.5 μm. It also says the proposed interconnection technique may be used to achieve a 30% efficiency in area-matched 4T tandem designs featuring a perovskite module over a silicon cell.

An Indian-US research team has fabricated a four-terminal perovskite-cadmium telluride tandem solar cell by utilizing a highly conductive and sputtered transparent electrode to increase the current density of the bottom cell. The tandem device combines a 18.3%-efficient top perovskite cell and a 19.53%-efficient cadmium telluride bottom device.

Renshine Solar says it will open a gigawatt-scale perovskite PV module factory in Jiangsu province, with a planned investment of CNY 1 billion ($138 million). In January, it reported that its perovskite solar panels had achieved a power conversion efficiency of 18.4%.

Scientists in South Africa have proposed a new chalcogenide perovskite solar cell design based on a compound known as barium zirconium sulfide. They tested different hole transport materials in the new device and found that a polymer known as P3HT achieved the best performance.

A U.S. research team has investigated the thermomechanical reliability of metal halide perovskite (MHP) modules and cells in an effort to identify the best strategies to improve their stability under thermomechanical stressors. The scientists discussed, in particular, film stresses, adhesion of charge transport layers, and instability under light and heat.

A Chinese research group including scientists from module maker Tongwei has designed a perovskite solar cell with remarkable perovskite film quality through the so-called self-disintegrating seed strategy. The device not only achieved one of the highest fill factor values ever recorded for perovskite solar to date, but also showed remarkable stability.