Solar cells on moon glass for a future base on the moon
Components of a Moon solar cell. © Felix Lang.
Future settlements on the moon will need energy, which could be supplied by photovoltaics. However, launching material into space is expensive – transporting one kilogram to the moon costs one million euros. But there are also resources on the moon that can be used. A research team led by Dr. Felix Lang of the University of Potsdam and Dr. Stefan Linke of the Technical University of Berlin have now produced the required glass from ‘moon dust’ (regolith) and coated it with perovskite. This could save up to 99 percent of the weight needed to produce PV modules on the moon. The team tested the radiation tolerance of the solar cells at the proton accelerator of the HZB.
“The highlight of our study is that we can extract the glass we need for our solar cells directly from the lunar regolith without any processing,” says project leader Felix Lang, who leads a junior research group at the Institute of Physics and Astronomy, funded by a Freigeist-Fellowship of the VolkswagenStiftung.
The solar cells tested by the researchers have a layered structure, with the substrate and cover layer consisting of Moon glass and the intermediate layer of perovskite. “These solar cells require ultrathin absorber layers of 500 to 800 nanometers only, allowing the fabrication of 400 square meter solar cells with just one kilogram of perovskite raw material brought from Earth,” Lang summarizes.
Lang emphasizes the amazing stability of the solar cells produced against solar and cosmic radiation – an essential prerequisite for a stable energy supply on the moon. The radiation tolerance was tested at the Proton accelerator at HZB in the team of Prof. Andrea Denker.
Read the full text at the website of University of Potsdam:
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/headlines-and-featured-stories/detail/2025-04-03-solarzellen-auf-mondglas-photovoltaik-koennte-die-energie-fuer-eine-zukuenftige-basis-au
- What Zinc concentration in teeth revealsTeeth are composites of mineral and protein, with a bulk of bony dentin that is highly porous. This structure is allows teeth to be both strong and sensitive. Besides calcium and phosphate, teeth contain trace elements such as zinc. Using complementary microscopy imaging techniques, a team from Charité Berlin, TU Berlin and HZB has quantified the distribution of natural zinc along and across teeth in 3 dimensions. The team found that, as porosity in dentine increases towards the pulp, zinc concentration increases 5~10 fold. These results help to understand the influence of widely-used zinc-containing biomaterials (e.g. filling) and could inspire improvements in dental medicine.
- Element cobalt exhibits surprising propertiesThe element cobalt is considered a typical ferromagnet with no further secrets. However, an international team led by HZB researcher Dr. Jaime Sánchez-Barriga has now uncovered complex topological features in its electronic structure. Spin-resolved measurements of the band structure (spin-ARPES) at BESSY II revealed entangled energy bands that cross each other along extended paths in specific crystallographic directions, even at room temperature. As a result, cobalt can be considered as a highly tunable and unexpectedly rich topological platform, opening new perspectives for exploiting magnetic topological states in future information technologies.
- A record year for our living lab for building-integrated PVIn 2025, our solar facade in Berlin-Adlershof generated more electricity than in any of the previous four years of operation.