Perovskites used to create high-efficiency thin-film solar cell

Science : Until now silicon has been the material of choice for constructing solar cells; it is abundant, and it’s a good semiconductor. But it is not very efficient—thin-film silicon solar cells are capable of converting only about 10% of sunlight into electricity. Perovskites had been proposed as a less expensive alternative because of their ability to easily absorb sunlight, but they were not believed to be particularly good semiconductors. So the first attempts to use them in a solar cell involved the construction of complex nanostructures to ensure that the flow of current made it to the adjacent semiconductors. Now Henry Snaith and colleagues at Oxford University show that perovskites work just as well in the same cheap thin-film cells as silicon. In addition, the new devices are even more efficient; they can convert more than 15% of sunlight into electricity. Further testing is needed to ascertain that industrially processed perovskites are nontoxic and can hold up to continued exposure to UV light.