- Caelux has announced a partnership with the UNSW’s ACDC division for perovskite solar cell development
- ACDC is using PL and ML to develop new, contactless techniques to study multijunction/tandem solar cells
- Caelux says these techniques will help develop reliability of perovskite solar cells to reach the level of silicon
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) spinoff Caelux Corporation has joined hands with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to speed up perovskite solar cell development. The partnership seeks to improve the commercial readiness of solar PV technologies.
Caelux develops perovskite-coated PV glass touting an efficiency of over 17% for its Caelux One product. It claims this can be incorporated into a module like any solar glass to improve the efficiency of the end product.
Caelux is partnering with UNSW’s Artificial Intelligence, Characterization, Defects, and Contacts (ACDC) Research Group on an Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funded project titled High-Throughput Inspection Methods for High-Efficiency Multijunction Solar Cells (see Australia Funds 13 Projects To Support Low Cost Solar Research).
By January 31, 2028, the ARENA-funded research work is expected to develop:
- photoluminescence (PL) imaging techniques to allow images of essential electrical parameters of multijunction/tandem cells to be captured, and
- contactless techniques to determine the current-voltage characteristics of multijunction/tandem cells.
PL imaging specialist ACDC plans to achieve these targets with the help of applied machine learning (ML), which will eventually improve the production output of solar modules. Caelux has now joined the research work.
“This partnership with the ACDC team at UNSW will greatly enhance the rapid development of perovskite solar cells and, through machine learning techniques, the long-term reliability of this class of solar cells to rapidly approach silicon, the ubiquitous technology,” stated the partners.
The 2 partners also plan to test their techniques on pilot production lines and techno-economic analysis of the potential market for the developed inspection tools.
Backed by the likes of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Khosla Ventures and Mitsui Fudosan, among others, Caelux is getting ready to bring its technology to the market. To support the initiative, it has raised $24 million under Series A funding (see Perovskite Start-Up Closes A3 Funding Round).
