An international team of researchers has demonstrated a technique for producing perovskite photovoltaic materials on an industrial scale, which will reduce the cost and improve the performance of mass-produced perovskite solar cells.

The technique is low-cost, simple, energy-efficient, and should pave the way for creating perovskite solar cells. Perovskite is of interest for solar cells because it absorbs light very efficiently. This allows for the creation of lightweight, flexible solar cells that can be incorporated into a range of technologies, such as the windows of buildings or vehicles.

«In the lab, researchers produce perovskite photovoltaic materials using a technique called spin coating, which creates a thin film of perovskite on a substrate — but only on a small scale,» says Aram Amassian, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and a professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University.

«We’re talking about sample substrates that are only one or two centimeters square. However, people didn’t think it was possible to scale spin-coating up for manufacturing, using substrates that are tens of centimeters square. Instead, people have opted for a variety of other methods. But these other methods produce perovskite photovoltaics that don’t perform as well as the thin films made using spin coating and required significant research and development.»

«What we’ve done here is demonstrate that you can produce perovskite photovoltaics on larger substrates using spin coating by designing a co-solvent dilution strategy,» says Michael Gratzel, co-corresponding author of the paper and a professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. «In other words, you can scale up production of photovoltaics and preserve the excellent performance of almost any type of perovskite thin film produced using spin coating.»

Historically, people thought spin coating could not be used to produce perovskite photovoltaics on industrial-scale substrates in a material-efficient way because of the nature of both spin coating and perovskites.

Story Source:
Materials provided by North Carolina State University. Original written by Matt Shipman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.