Recently, a team led by Liu Shengzhong, a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a team led by Feng Jiangshan, an associate researcher at Shaanxi Normal University, have made new progress in the research of large-area perovskite solar cells.
It is reported that these two teams have achieved a breakthrough in the large-area and continuous production of perovskite thin films by using vacuum deposition combined with an annealing strategy. This method can fabricate perovskite solar cells on rigid substrates of 400 square centimeters and flexible substrates of 300 square centimeters, with a conversion efficiency as high as 21.32%.
In addition, the team can also fabricate perovskite solar cells under a full vacuum method with a conversion efficiency of 18.89%, which is also a significant breakthrough.
As a third-generation solar cell, perovskite solar cells have seen rapid improvements in conversion efficiency in recent years and have been highly valued by the industry. However, two major problems—the inability to fabricate on a large scale and poor stability—have continued to hinder their development.
Previously, some teams claimed that they could fabricate perovskite solar cells with efficiencies exceeding 25% in a smaller area, but they could not solve the problem of large-area fabrication. The progress of this study mainly lies in achieving large-area fabrication, but the conversion efficiency of 21.32% is not high, and it must be fabricated under vacuum conditions, which increases costs and also loses the efficiency advantage of perovskite solar cells.
Overall, the problems of perovskite solar cells, such as the inability to fabricate them on a large scale and their poor stability, are like a seesaw in a park. Pressing down on one problem will cause another to surface. To achieve large-scale mass production, we need to address both aspects in a coordinated manner.
