Researchers at Oxford University in the UK have made a thin-film solar cell with better than 15% light-conversion efficiency from an emergent class of semiconductors known as perovskites. The devices have a simple architecture and could easily be produced in large quantities because the vapour deposition process used to make them is compatible with conventional processing methods for fabricating such solar cells. Perovskite fabricated on a glass sheet Organometal trihalide perovskite semiconductors, which have the formula (CH3NH3)PbX3, where Pb is lead and X can be iodine, bromine or chlorine) were first employed as the light absorbing component in so-called dye-sensitized solar cells in 2009. In these devices, the perovskites were coated onto the surface of a film made of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. When the perovskite layer absorbs light, electrons and holes are generated. These charge carriers are subsequently transferred to different transport materials – TiO2 for the electrons and to another material for the holes. The transport materials then carry the charges to separate electrodes, and a voltage is produced. These solar cells have light-converting efficiencies of between 12 and 15% thanks to the large amount of perovskite packed into the TiO2 film. Simplifying the device structure Two teams of researchers

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