Helmholtz Association promotes HZB cooperation with Slovenia on perovskite silicon tandem solar cells
Marko Jošt was a PhD student in the HySPRINT-Lab in Steve Albrecht's group. Now he will continue his research on tandem solar cells at the university of Lubljana. © M. Setzpfandt/ HZB
A HZB team has successfully raised funds from the “Helmholtz European Partnering Program” of the Helmholtz Association to expand cooperation with partners of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The topics of the cooperation are tandem solar cells made of perovskite and silicon and, in particular, their precise characterisation.
Currently, most solar modules consist of silicon, a semiconductor that mainly uses the red parts of the solar spectrum to generate electricity. The combination of silicon with perovskite semiconductors therefore promises great opportunities for even higher efficiencies. Semiconductor materials from this material class convert the energy-rich, blue parts of the spectrum into electricity.
Now the HZB physicist Prof. Dr. Steve Albrecht has raised funds from the Helmholtz Association to investigate such tandem solar cells with partners from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The TAPAS project is funded by the Helmholtz European Partnering programme for the next three years with 250,000 euros per year each. Following an evaluation, the funding period can be extended by two years. The Helmholtz European Partnering programme was set up to strengthen the European research area, in particular cooperation with countries in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe.
The name TAPAS stands for "Tandem Perovskite and Silicon solar cells - Advanced opto-electrical characterization, modeling and stability". Together with opto-electrical modelling, highly efficient and stable next-generation tandem solar cells are to be developed for the energy system of the future.
The Working Group for Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics at the University of Ljubljana (LPVO, headed by Prof. Dr Marko Topič) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have established a very successful cooperation in recent years, which will be further strengthened by this funding. The aim of the cooperation is to analyse the processes that affect the stability of the modules in the field.
- Spin waves inside a nano-oscillator imaged for the first timeFor the first time, researchers have directly imaged the magnetisation dynamics inside a spin Hall nano-oscillator — a nanoscale device that converts direct current into tunable microwave signals and is a promising building block for energy-efficient wireless communication and brain-inspired computing. A Swedish–German team led by the University of Gothenburg and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) achieved this using time-resolved scanning transmission X-ray microscopy at the MAXYMUS instrument at BESSY II. The results, now published in Advanced Materials, reveal spin-wave features that had escaped previous, indirect measurement techniques.
- Joint power instead of duplicate structures:Berlin’s research community is further advancing its research excellence by establishing a high-performance, cross-institutional infrastructure for data and AI. With a joint agreement signed on 18 September 2026, the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) are paving the way for a joint data science and AI centre in Berlin-Dahlem and Adlershof.
- New technique could make MRI more preciseA team of researchers at the University of Stuttgart and HZB has developed a new method that could make MRI even more precise by eliminating “dead time,” a key limiting factor in the measurement process, thereby enabling the detection of signals that are lost using conventional methods. This method opens up new possibilities for medical diagnostics and non-destructive materials testing. The research team presents the new approach in Science Advances.