new study finds that cracks in brittle perovskite films can be easily healed with compression or mild heating. It will be a good sign for the use of perovskites in next-generation solar cells.
The study, published in the journal Acta Materialia, finds that though perovskite films tend to crack easily, those cracks are easily healed with some compression or a little bit of heat. This will enable the use of inexpensive perovskites to replace or complement pricy silicon in solar cell technologies.
The efficiency of perovskite solar cells has grown very quickly and now rivals silicon in laboratory cells.
Perovskites, a broad class of crystalline materials, were first incorporated into solar cells in 2009. Those first perovskite solar cells had a power conversion efficiency of around 4%, but now that exceeds 25% — essentially the same as traditional silicon. The advantage of perovskite solar cells is that they can be made for a fraction of the cost of silicon, potentially cutting the cost of solar power installations. Perovskites can also be made into thin films that are semi-transparent and flexible, potentially clearing the way for energy-generating windows or for lightweight, flexible solar cells in tents or backpacks.
But the low-cost and ease of making perovskite solar cells comes with a cost.
In material science, things that are easy to make also tend to be easy to break. That’s certainly true of perovskites, which are quite brittle. But the researchers show they’re also quite easy to fix — cracks in perovskite films can be healed by compressing them or with moderate heat.
News Source: Brown’s School of Engineering
