Adding cesium to perovskite in solar cells boosts performance of silicon

A team of researchers working at Oxford University has found a way to add cesium to perovskite solar cells to boost the performance of silicon, while maintaining the efficiency benefits it offers. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their process which included finding a way to overcome the problem of efficiency loss in such materials that normally come about due to a limited range of solar spectrum use.

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Up until now, efforts to get perovskites to work in tandem with silicon have been held back by inefficiencies in the cells due to the range of solar spectrum they were able to use—attempts to tweak the mix have led to instability in the materials. To overcome this problem, the team at Oxford came up with a process based on substituting certain ions in the material with cesium ions—it solved the spectrum problem, they report, while maintaining the stability of the overall structure.

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