Swiss and South Korean scientists took a better have a look at the crystal construction of a perovskite thin-film to raised perceive the mechanisms behind the warmth and moisture sensitivity that causes many sturdiness points. for photo voltaic cells based mostly on these supplies. They found part of the crystal floor that’s significantly susceptible to moisture-induced degradation, and developed a technique to develop skinny perovskite movies with sturdy resistance to moisture and warmth stress. .

Perovskite photo voltaic cells developed at EPFL

Picture: EPFL

Whereas the excessive conversion effectivity achieved by perovskite photo voltaic cell supplies has attracted a lot consideration lately, the related sensitivity to warmth and moisture nonetheless presents a problem to commercialization.

Many components, encapsulants and barrier layers have been proposed to repair this, however understanding the precise mechanisms that happen throughout the materials that causes injury involved with warmth and water might open the best way to a extra complete answer. That is the purpose of scientists led by École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Sungkyunkwan College in South Korea, who appeared intently on the crystal construction of a perovskite to seek out out what occurred.

The crew examined completely different options – flat surfaces on the floor of the crystal. Their outcomes are printed within the paper Unveiling facet-dependent degradation and aspect engineering for steady perovskite photo voltaic cells, printed in Science. The crew discovered a standard function, the 100 function, which it described as “perpendicular to a crystal’s c-axis with its atoms organized in a repeating sample within the form of a sq. grid”, particularly unstable when uncovered to moisture.

One other part, named 111 and described as “atoms organized in a triangular grid,” has been proven to be extra moisture resistant. And the group got down to create a brand new perovskite movie that grows with greater than 111 sides and fewer than 100. The group makes use of the movies to make photo voltaic cells that obtain 23.8% effectivity, and it maintains 85% of its preliminary efficiency afterwards. 800 hours underneath check situations of 85% humidity and a temperature of 85 C, whereas a management pattern fell to 75% of its preliminary efficiency worth underneath the identical situations.

The group says that varied optimizations ought to have the ability to enhance the PV efficiency of the newly engineered perovskite, and that it hopes that this kind of aspect engineering might be a helpful software within the improvement of perovskite photo voltaic cells. cell that meets market expectations for efficiency and longevity.

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