New perovskite glass materials could unlock the next generation of solar cells
Perovskite materials have great potential for use in low-cost, highly-efficient solar panels. But their instability in real-world conditions mean they have limited operational lifetimes. Professor Tom Bennett from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha the University of Canterbury will produce and characterise next-generation perovskite glass materials with the potential to solve this problem
Published on 7 Whiringa-ā-rangi November 2024
Perovskites are a special class of inorganic materials commonly found in nature. A new type of perovskite material - a hybrid of inorganic and organic materials - has enormous promise for converting light into useful products such as electricity. One of its most promising applications is in the production of perovskite solar cells, predicted to have a market worth of 2.5 billion US dollars by 2032. However, hybrid perovskite materials have some fundamental issues that limit their potential. In particular, they are unstable and tend to break down when exposed to everyday conditions and weather. Stability can be improved by adding a stable coating of plastic or glass, but this doesn’t solve the underlying issue and can have long-term environmental impacts.
Professor Bennett and their team have recently shown that hybrid perovskite materials can be melted to form glass, which have superior stability to their crystalline counterparts. In this Marsden Standard project, Professor Bennett and their team will produce a library of different stable hybrid perovskite glasses and then characterise their structures and properties in detail. To ensure that the glasses formed are stable, the team will employ a new technique that they have found prevents recrystallisation. They will also investigate whether they can produce hybrid perovskite materials that switch between crystalline and glassy states, which could be used for devices with ‘memory’.
This work will revolutionise the field of glass science by producing next-generation hybrid perovskite materials with improved properties and diverse potential applications. By solving issues with perovskite solar cell stability, this research could make a significant contribution to unlocking a 100% renewable-energy future.