New Photovoltaic Tech Could Rival Silicon-Based Solar Cells

"While silicon-based solar cells dominate the photovoltaics market, silicon is far from the only material that can effectively harvest electricity from sunlight," notes Ars Technica:Thin-film solar cells using cadmium and telluride are common in utility-scale solar deployments, and in space, we use high-efficiency cells that rely on three distinct materials to harvest different parts of the spectrum. Another class of materials, which we're currently not using, has been the subject of extensive research: perovskites. These materials are cheap and incredibly easy to process into a functional solar cell. The reason they're not used is that they tend to degrade when placed in sunlight, limiting their utility to a few years. That has drawn the attention of the research community, which has been experimenting with ways to keep them stable for longer. In Thursday's edition of Science, a research team from Princeton described how they've structured a perovskite material to limit the main mechanism by which it decays, resulting in a solar cell with a lifetime similar to that of silicon. While the perovskite cell isn't as efficient as what is currently on the market, a similar structure might work to preserve related materials that have higher efficiencies. Their research involved a capping layer that's just a few atoms thick, according to an announcement from Princeton University, calling the resulting solar cell "a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable energy technology... the first of its kind to rival the performance of silicon-based cells, which have dominated the market since their introduction in 1954..." "The team projects their device can perform above industry standards for around 30 years, far more than the 20 years used as a threshold for viability for solar cells."Perovskites can be manufactured at room temperature, using much less energy than silicon, making them cheaper and more sustainable to produce. And whereas silicon is stiff and opaque, perovskites can be made flexible and transparent, extending solar power well beyond the iconic panels that populate hillsides and rooftops across America.... [Engineering professor/team lead] Loo said it's not that perovskite solar cells will replace silicon devices so much that the new technology will complement the old, making solar panels even cheaper, more efficient and more durable than they are now, and expanding solar energy into untold new areas of modern life. For example, Loo's group recently demonstrated a completely transparent perovskite film (having different chemistry) that can turn windows into energy producing devices without changing their appearance. Other groups have found ways to print photovoltaic inks using perovskites, allowing formfactors scientists are only now dreaming up.

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