As the world begins to pivot away from fossil fuels, solar energy offers a promising alternative that is both clean and renewable. However, a major barrier preventing widespread adoption of this renewable energy source is cost. Panels are typically made using silicon which entails a lengthy and expensive production process.
Meet perovskite, a silicon alternative that is simple to make and cheap to produce, requiring only a few laboratory salts and an inkjet printer. Perovskite commercialization is currently in the early stages and growing. However, deep within perovskite’s crystal core there are costly structural weaknesses that render it inefficient. The source of these weaknesses has long eluded scientists.
But a UNC-Chapel Hill research team found that strengthening the composition of the perovskite crystal may lead to a more stable solar panel, in a study published in May in the journal Science.
At the connection between the bottom transport layer and perovskite, there is a disturbance, says Jinsong Huang, a professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, who headed the research team.