Solar cells for the Internet of Things

Seed capital and (more) customers for Empa spin-off

25-Sep-2024 - Perovskia Solar has won more than ten leading companies from the Internet of Things (IoT) industry as customers and received over two million Swiss francs in seed capital. The multi-award-winning Empa spin-off prints customized solar cells for almost any electronic device. These can be produced ...

Small steps for electrons – big steps for the solar cells of the future?

Novel measurement method helps to improve perovskite solar cells in a targeted manner

19-Jul-2024 - Physicists at the University of Regensburg and the University of Oxford are using an ultrafast microscope to reveal how electrons move in a new type of solar cell material. The results provide insights into how the material can be used even more efficiently for photovoltaics. In the search for ...

Light, flexible, efficient: Perovskite-based tandem solar cells

From the lab to the roof

07-May-2024 - All-perovskite tandem solar cells could soon pick up where silicon solar cells reach their limits. These highly efficient, lightweight and flexible cells have already proven themselves in the laboratory – now, Empa researchers are working on scaling them up and making them ready for the real ...

Highest power efficiency achieved in flexible solar cells using new fabrication technique

02-Apr-2024 - Flexible solar cells have many potential applications in aerospace and flexible electronics, but low energy conversion efficiency has limited their practical use. A new manufacturing method has increased the power efficiency of flexible solar cells made from perovskite, a class of compounds with ...

AI for perovskite solar cells: Key to better manufacturing

Artificial Intelligence methods guide researchers in developing improved manufacturing processes for highly efficient solar cells – a blueprint for other research areas

24-Nov-2023 - Perovskite tandem solar cells combine a perovskite solar cell with a conventional solar cell, for example based on silicon. These cells are considered a next-generation technology: They boast an efficiency of currently more than 33 percent, which is much higher than that of conventional silicon ...

HZB and University of Jena found Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications

Developing internationally competitive energy materials

22-Jun-2023 - Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Energy, HZB) are jointly founding the "Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications" (HIPOLE) on 1 July 2023. The aim of HIPOLE is to develop sustainable polymer materials for energy ...

Twisting Under the Stroboscope – Controlling Crystal Lattices of Hybrid Solar Cell Materials with Terahertz Light

31-May-2023 - To overcome global energy challenges and fight the looming environmental crisis, researchers around the world investigate new materials for converting sunlight into electricity. Some of the most promising candidates for high-efficiency low-cost solar cell applications are based on lead halide ...

Research reveals thermal instability of solar cells but offers a bright path forward

15-Feb-2023 - A new type of solar technology has seemed promising in recent years. Halide perovskite solar cells are both high performing and low cost for producing electrical energy – two necessary ingredients for any successful solar technology of the future. But new solar cell materials should also match ...

Tandem solar cells with perovskite: nanostructures help in many ways

Customised nanotextures can help to improve perowskite semiconductor materials on diverse levels

02-Nov-2022 - By the end of 2021, teams at HZB had presented perovskite silicon tandem solar cells with an efficiency close to 30 percent. This value was a world record for eight months, a long time for this hotly contested field of research. In the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the scientists describe how ...

Photon Recycling – the Key to High-Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells

Additional light emission is achieved by recursively recycling trapped photons in perovskites

17-Jan-2022 - Scientists from TU Dresden, in cooperation with researchers at Seoul National University (SNU) and Korea University (KU), demonstrated the role of the re-use of photons (known as ‘photon recycling’) and light scattering effects in perovskite solar cells, providing a pathway towards ...