A team comprising researchers from Peking University and the Universities of Surrey, Oxford and Cambridge have achieved a power conversion efficiency of 20.9% for inverted perovskite solar cells. This, they claim, is the highest certified PCE ever recorded for this kind.
The team used a technique called Solution-Process Secondary growth (SSG) which increased the voltage of perovskite solar cells by 100 millivolts, reaching up to 1.21 V without compromising the quality of the cell or the electrical current flow. Through this research, they tried to demonstrate a new way to reduce the unwanted process of non-radiative recombination, where energy and efficiency is lost in perovskite solar cells.
The research paper 'Enhanced photovoltage for inverted planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells' was published by renowned journal Science recently.
"Our new technique confirms that there is a lot of promise with perovskite solar cells and we aim to explore this new and exciting area more in the future," said Wei Zhang of the Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey.
Zhang and his team are now starting to work on vertical heterojunction devices based on perovskite and carbon nanomaterials. To study this, the team has been awarded £236,000 ($276,000) New Investigator Award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.