Perovskites could shine in both solar cells and lasers

Science : The latest wonder material may prove to be perovskites, whose complex crystalline structure has already been shown to make an excellent solar cell. Now two groups of researchers have reported at the Materials Research Society fall meeting in Boston that perovskites could also be used to produce cheap and inexpensive lasers. Edward Sargent of the University of Toronto and colleagues created an IR laser by blasting spherical samples of perovskites with UV light. A different group, led by Henry Snaith of the University of Oxford, produced an IR laser by firing short-wavelength light beams at a pair of Bragg reflectors separated by a perovskite film. Although neither method is commercially viable yet, such lasers could find a variety of uses—in the modern telecommunications industry, for example.