Engineering wide band-gap LOW-DImensional systems for advanced perovskite optoelectronics

Introduction

Engineering new solutions for powering smart portable devices is key to sustaining billion-scale connected objects and providing a greener alternative to batteries. Indoor Photovoltaics (PVs) - with a projected market of $850 million by 2023 - relying on the conversion of visible indoor light can sustain this challenge, capitalizing on the development of flexible, semi-transparent, colored, and easily integrated energy generation devices.

Current Challenges

Despite the urgency and the large market potential, current PV technologies mostly fail, leveraging rigid and bulky systems fabricated by energy-intensive processes (i.e. Silicon PVs) or on carbon-based technologies that are not yet in the market due to their insufficient durability.

Potential of Hybrid Perovskites

Hybrid perovskites with a wide band gap (2eV), with their easy tunability, structural flexibility, and lightweight, hold the potential for a transformative solution in visible PVs. However, the following issues hamper their scaling up:

1. Lower efficiency compared to low-band gap perovskites
2. Reliance on toxic elements
3. Insufficient stability

ELOW-DI's Approach

ELOW-DI faces this challenge by engineering the perovskite dimensionality as the key variable to unlock device instability while allowing for efficient visible light conversion. This will be obtained through:

1. Developing intrinsically stable low-dimensional perovskites (LDPs) – leveraging non-toxic elements and stable hydrophobic units.
2. Controlling material nucleation and consequent thin film morphology to obtain vertically oriented crystalline nanopillars, essential to ensure efficient charge extraction in the device while reducing unwanted recombination.

Future Directions

Upon the demonstration of the proof of concept on a lab scale, research will move in a completely new direction by engineering large area devices while ensuring the scalability of the nanoscale material properties. ELOW-DI is timely, and it will generate the new multidisciplinary knowledge – from material to device engineering – which is now needed for the next generation of indoor PV solutions.