Solar energy has long been considered the most sustainable option to replace our reliance on fossil fuels, but the technology to convert solar energy into electricity must be both efficient and cheap. Scientists at the Department of Energy Materials and Surface Sciences at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate School (OIST) believe they have found a new way to create low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells. Professor Yabing Qi and his team from OIST, in collaboration with Professor Shengzhong Liu from Shaanxi Normal University in China, developed these cells using materials and compounds that mimic the crystal structure of the natural mineral perovskite. They describe their technique in a study published in the journal Nature Communications. In what Professor Qi calls the "Golden Triangle", solar cell technology needs to meet three conditions worthy of commercialization: the conversion rate of solar energy into electrical energy must be high, the production cost must be low, and it must have a long life. Today, most commercial solar cells are made from crystalline silicon, which has a relatively high efficiency of about 22%. While silicon, the raw material for these solar cells, is abundant, the processing is often complex and increases manufacturing costs, making the finished product expensive. Professor Qi said perovskites offer a more affordable solution. In 2009, Professor Tsutomu Miyasaka's research team at Toin University in Yokohama, Japan, first used perovskite to make solar cells, and it has rapidly become more important since then. "Research on perovskite cells is very promising. In just 9 years, the efficiency of these cells increased from 3.8% to 23.3%. It took more than 30 years of research for other technologies to reach the same level," Professor Qi explained. The manufacturing method he and his research team developed produces perovskite solar cells with efficiency comparable to crystalline silicon cells, but it is likely to be much cheaper than making silicon solar cells. To make the new cells, the researchers coated a transparent conductive substrate with a thin film of perovskite, which absorbs sunlight very efficiently. They used a technology based on a gas-solid reaction, in which the substrate is first coated with a layer of hydrogen triiodide, with small amounts of chloride ions and methylamine gas added - allowing them to reproducibly create large, uniform panels, each powered by multiple solar Battery. While developing the method, the scientists realized that making the perovskite layer 1 micron thick could significantly increase the operating life of the solar cell. "After 800 hours of operation, the solar cells showed almost no change," said Dr. Liu Zonghao, a postdoctoral scholar in the YIST Professor's Research Department and the first author of the study. In addition, thicker coatings not only improve the stability of solar cells but also facilitate the manufacturing process, thereby reducing production costs. "The thicker absorber layer ensures good reproducibility in solar cell fabrication, which is a key advantage for large-scale manufacturing in realistic industrial-scale settings," said Dr. Liu. The biggest challenge Professor Qi and his team now face is increasing the size of the newly designed solar cells from 0.1mm2-sized prototypes to large commercial-sized panels that can be several feet long. This is where industry can help. "There is a large gap between findings in the laboratory and in the real world, and industry is not always willing to fully bridge this gap itself. Therefore, researchers need to take a more necessary step outside the laboratory and in Industry development is achieved midway,” Professor Qi said. To take this step, Professor Qi and team received generous funding from the OIST Technology Development and Innovation Center under their proof-of-concept program. With this funding, the team has built a working model of a new perovskite solar cell module, which consists of multiple solar cells on a 5cm × 5cm substrate with an effective area of 12cm2, which is much larger than the experimental prototype. , but smaller than the size required for commercial use. Purpose. While the process of scaling up has reduced the efficiency of the cells from 20% to 15%, the researchers are optimistic that they will be able to improve the way they work and successfully commercialize their use in the coming years.

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