For the first time, researchers have discovered a way to obtain polarity and photovoltaic behavior from certain nonphotovoltaic, atomically flat (2D) materials. The key lies in the special way in which the materials are arranged. The resulting effect is different from, and potentially superior to, the photovoltaic effect commonly found in solar cells.
In perovskite solar cells (PSCs), grain boundaries (GBs) have been identified to be detrimental to the photovoltaic performance of the devices.
A team of researchers led by Aarhus University and including experts from universities and knowledge institutions in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia has published an article in the prestigious scientific journal Joule confirming that the role of solar photovoltaic installations in future green energy systems ought to be significantly upgraded.
Solar cells are superior tools for producing renewable energy by using sunlight to induce electrical current for power. From the 1980s, they have been utilized to power homes, and their production cost and performance have enhanced considerably over the years.
Perovskites, a class of materials first reported in the early 19th century, were "re-discovered" in 2009 as a possible candidate for power generation via their use in solar cells. Since then, they have taken the photovoltaic (PV) research community by storm, reaching new record efficiencies at an unprecedented pace.
In the future, photovoltaic cells could be "worn" over clothes, placed on cars or even on beach umbrellas. These are just some of the possible developments from a study published in Nature Communications by researchers at the Physics Department of the Politecnico di Milano, working with colleagues at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Imperial College London.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are changing the lighting and display industry and have obtained significant advances than traditional lighting sources. The traditional materials LEDs, e.g., III-V semiconductor LEDs, organic LEDs (OLEDs) and quantum-dot LEDs (QLEDs), have achieved great success and gradually realized commercialization, but still face some challenges.
Around the world there are currently more than 18 billion internet-connected mobile devices. In the next 10 years, anticipated growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) and in machine-type communication in general, will lead to a world of hundreds of billions of data-connected objects. Such growth poses two very challenging problems:
Isn't it convenient when office building windows adaptively darken according to the intensity of sunlight- Or when standard glasses turn into sunglasses under the sun and switch back as you enter a building- Such feats are possible thanks to photochromic materials, whose optical (and other) properties change radically when irradiated by visible or ultraviolet light.
A long-cherished dream of materials researchers is a solar cell that converts sunlight into electrical energy as efficiently as silicon, but that can be easily and inexpensively fabricated from abundant materials. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now come a step closer to achieving this.
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