Hybrid Perovskite Heterojunctions

钙钛矿太阳能电池是历史上发展最快的太阳能技术，其功率转换效率超过23%，高于现有的太阳能技术，如多晶硅、CIGS或CdTe。钙钛矿的主要优点是易于加工，即它们可以从简单的油墨中打印出来，并且它们的元素丰富；确保其长期低成本。这导致了非常高质量的材料，也可以应用于照明应用，如一般的房间照明，手持设备和更大的屏幕和通信设备的显示器。能够有效地将光转化为电的低成本材料也能有效地将电转化为光，这是非常不寻常的。制造这类材料不需要目前制造电子元件所需的昂贵的高科技基础设施。这使得该材料家族对太阳能以外的许多重要技术部门极具吸引力。我们项目的主要目的是通过引入一种新型的层状钙钛矿材料来从器件中提取电荷，从而提高钙钛矿太阳能电池的性能和稳定性。这种方法不需要使用目前使用的非常昂贵的有机层，并将进一步显著节省成本，使该技术对商业企业更具吸引力。为了实现这一目标，我们的项目旨在引入基于钙钛矿“量子阱”结构的防潮层，该结构可以有效地允许电流仅向一个方向流过，即非常薄的钙钛矿材料薄片（厚度为几个原子层）夹在同样薄的塑料片之间。通过精心选择合适的塑料片材，结构变得更耐水，从而更稳定，同时保持钙钛矿家族的高品质电子性能。通过开发这些新颖的结构，我们的项目将使制造太阳能电池以外的新型电子设备成为可能。例如，表现出量子阱特性的材料对激光器的制造非常有用。它们是信息技术的组成部分，也用于许多其他应用，如果它们足够便宜，可能会得到更广泛的应用。

Perovskite solar cells are the fastest growing solar technology in history, with demonstrated power conversion efficiencies exceeding 23%, above established solar technologies such as polycrystalline silicon, CIGS or CdTe. The main advantage of perovskites is their ease of processing, i.e. they can be printed from simple inks, and their elements are in abundance; ensuring their long-term low cost. This results in very high-quality materials that can also be applied in lighting applications such as general room lighting, displays for hand-held devices and larger screens and communication devices. It is highly unusual that low-cost materials that can efficiently convert light to electricity can also efficiently do the reverse process of electricity to light. Manufacturing these kinds of materials does not require the expensive high-tech infrastructure currently needed to make electronic components. This makes this family of materials extremely attractive for many important technological sectors beyond solar energy.The main aim of our project is to improve the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells by introducing a novel layered perovskite material to extract charge from the device. This approach removes the requirement to employ very expensive organic layers currently in use and will lead to significant further cost-savings, making the technology more attractive for commercial enterprises. To achieve this, our project aims to introduce moisture barrier layers that can efficiently allow electrical current flow only in one direction through them based on perovskite ``quantum-well'' structures, i.e. very thin sheets of the perovskite material (several atom layers in thickness) that are sandwiched between equally thin plastic sheets. By carefully selecting the appropriate plastic sheet material, the structure becomes more resistive to water, and thus more stable, while maintaining the high-quality electronic properties of the perovskite family.By developing these novel structures, our project will enable the manufacture of new types of electronic devices beyond solar cells. For instance, materials that show quantum-well properties are very useful for the fabrication of lasers. These are integral to information technologies and are also used in many other applications that could be even more widespread if they were sufficiently cheap.