Funding Source: Office of Science Visiting Faculty Program – With tunable direct-bandgaps, high defect tolerance, and low embodied energy, metal halide perovskites have emerged as game-changing materials for low-cost and high-efficiency multijunction solar cells to meet our current and emerging energy demands. However, despite this promise, the performance of multijunction perovskite solar cells remains limited, due in large part to instabilities and recombination losses in the wide bandgap (>1.67 eV) perovskites needed for devices to be successful. Working with a team at the National Renewable Energy Lab, we are attempting to characterize and overcome these current limitations. Through in situ structure and optoelectronic property characterization, we monitor the formation of perovskite semiconductors and relate this to structural and performance stability of these new materials as a function of processing condition. Ultimately, our results advance the development of stable wide bandgap perovskites for high-efficiency photovoltaics and de-risk the development of these new renewable energy technologies.

Faculty: Becky Belisle
Department: Physics
Funding Source: Office of Science Visiting Faculty Program