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NREL-Led Breakthrough Pushes
Perovskite Solar Cell to Greater Stability & Efficiency
Researchers at the U.S. Department of
Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) made a
technological breakthrough and constructed a perovskite solar cell
with the dual benefits of being both highly efficient and highly
stable.
The work was done in collaboration with
scientists from the University of Toledo, the University of
Colorado–Boulder, and the University of California–San Diego.
A unique architectural structure enabled
the researchers to record a certified stabilized efficiency of 24%
under 1-sun illumination, making it the highest reported of its kind.
The highly efficient cell also retained 87% of its original efficiency
after 2,400 hours of operation at 55 degrees Celsius.
The paper, “Surface
Reaction for Efficient and Stable Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells,”
appears in the journal Nature. The authors from NREL are Qi
Jiang, Jinhui Tong, Ross Kerner, Sean Dunfield, Chuanxiao Xiao,
Rebecca Scheidt, Darius Kuciauskas, Matthew Hautzinger, Robert Tirawat,
Matthew Beard, Joseph Berry, Bryon Larson, and Kai Zhu.
Perovskite, which refers to a crystalline
structure, has emerged in the last decade as an impressive means to
efficiently capture sunlight and convert it to electricity. Research
into perovskite solar cells has been focused to a large degree on how
to increase their stability.
“Some people can demonstrate
perovskites with high stability, but efficiency is lower,” said
Zhu, a senior scientist in the Chemistry and Nanoscience Center at
NREL. “You ought to have high efficiency and high stability
simultaneously. That’s challenging.”
The researchers used an inverted
architecture, rather than the “normal” architecture that has to date
yielded the highest efficiencies. The difference between the two types
is defined by how the layers are deposited on the glass substrate. The
inverted perovskite architecture is known for its high stability and
integration into tandem solar cells. The NREL-led team also added a
new molecule, 3-(Aminomethyl) pyridine (3-APy), to the surface of the
perovskite. The molecule reacted to the formamidinium within the
perovskite to create an electric field on the surface of the
perovskite layer.
“That suddenly gave us a huge boost of
not only efficiency but also stability,” Zhu said.
The scientists reported the 3-APy
reactive surface engineering can improve the efficiency of an inverted
cell from less than 23% to greater than 25%. They also noted the
reactive surface engineering stands out as an effective approach to
significantly enhance the performance of inverted cells “to new
state-of-the-art levels of efficiency and operational reliability.”
Funding for the research done at NREL
came from the Center for Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Semiconductors for
Energy (CHOISE), an Energy Frontier Research Center within
DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and from the DOE’s Solar
Energy Technologies Office.
Courtesy of
NREL, the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory
for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.
NREL is operated for the Energy Department by the Alliance for
Sustainable Energy, LLC.
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