Perovskite solar cells: TEAM PV develops reproducibility and comparability
Perovskite materials for photovoltaic applications come in many shades, reflecting their huge variety of optical properties. This makes them uniquely fit to be combined with other materials in multijunction solar cells. © M. Setzpfandt/HZB
At HZB several labs are dedicated to perovskite research. Here different compositions of the material can be prepared. © M. Setzpfandt/HZB
The HZB runs a testing facility in order to observe different perovskite solar cells in real life conditions. © HZB
Ten teams at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin are building a long-term international alliance to converge practices and develop reproducibility and comparability in perovskite materials. The TEAM PV project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany.
Solar energy is already the cheapest way to generate electricity in many parts of the world. But the world needs much higher efficiency solar modules to power demanding sectors such as electric vehicles, steel production, and AI. Likely the only option for increasing efficiency within the next decade is halide perovskites, a new class of materials that has been the subject of intensive research in the last decade. And while the silicon modules that dominate the market today are mainly produced in China, production facilities for halide perovskite cells could also be set up in Europe and the US, de-risking supply chains.
However, the road from the laboratory to mass production is long and there are still a number of hurdles to overcome. "The central goal is to increase the manufacturability, stability, and reliability of perovskite-based technologies. We urgently need common protocols to reliably compare diverse global developments in these novel materials and also to predict their service life," says Dr Siddhartha Garud, who drives the management of the TEAM PV project at HZB. Within this project, HZB aims to converge best practices in fabrication and analyses together with the National Renewable Energy Lab NREL, the University of Colorado Boulder and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
One of the main questions is how the stability determined in a laboratory will behave under real conditions in a field. Another focus will be on machine learning methods to navigate this extremely vast class of materials and devices. The participating teams will work closely together to further develop the fabrication and analysis of perovskite thin films and full devices.
The BMBF is providing a total of €4 million in funding for the TEAM PV project for tools, personnel and researcher exchanges. "We want to establish a long-term partnership in photovoltaics with sustained researcher exchanges and also make it a starting point for further collaborations between the Helmholtz Association and National Labs and top Universities in the U.S.", Garud says.
- AI agents deliver results – but do they reason scientifically?A research team co-led by Kevin Maik Jablonka from the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications Jena (HIPOLE Jena) and N. M. Anoop Krishnan from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi has developed Corral, a new benchmark for AI agents in science. The preprint “AI scientists produce results without reasoning scientifically” has been published on arXiv (https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.18805). The analysis shows that current systems can execute scientific workflows and deliver results; however, they often do not follow the basic principles of scientific testing and reasoning.
- Magnetic field during catalyst synthesis triples ammonia yieldApplying an external magnetic field during the synthesis of CoFe₂O₄ electrocatalysts triples the ammonia yield during electrocatalytic conversion. The magnetic field alters the surface states of the spinel oxide thin films, making catalytically active sites more accessible. In the journal 'Advanced Functional Materials', a team led by Marcel Risch at HZB and Sanjay Mathur at University of Cologne demonstrates a scalable strategy for developing next-generation electrocatalysts for efficient and sustainable chemical production.
- Materials chemistry shapes the future of catalysisThe synthesis of materials can serve as a tool for developing smart, adaptive electrocatalysts. This rapidly evolving field of research involves in-situ analytics, data-driven discoveries and autonomous robotics. These new approaches could accelerate the discovery of long-lasting and efficient catalysts for future energy conversion and the decarbonisation of the chemical industry. A recent article by Dr Prashanth Menezes and his team in the renowned journal Angewandte Chemie provides an overview of this research.