Perovskite is rapidly becoming a leader in the field of efficient solar cells, but it has one obvious problem -- it's too fragile, foreign media reported. Now, a team of engineers from purdue university has found that the material can be stabilized by adding a large molecule, making it stackable and useful in solar cells and other electronics.
Conventional solar cells are made of silicon in the mobile layer, and after decades of improvement, the efficiency of these devices has reached more than 20 percent. Perovskite solar cells have reached the same level in just 10 years. When silicon and perovskite are used together, the efficiency can be as high as 27.7%.
Another benefit of perovskite is that it is easier and cheaper to mass-produce, and is so thin that it can be printed or sprayed onto the surface.
But there's actually a catch -- perovskite is notoriously unstable, so it's susceptible to all kinds of elements -- which is obviously not good news considering solar cells are exposed to sunlight and rain all day -- and it doesn't stack well.
In the new study, researchers found a fairly simple way to make it more stable. They added on the surface of the perovskite a rigid molecules called bithiophenylethylammonium. The team notes that the movement of the ions is stabilized in this way, preventing the material from breaking bonds too easily or mixing with other layers of perovskite.

"If an engineer wants to combine the best part of perovskite A with the best part of perovskite B, it's usually impossible, because perovskite only mixes together," said Brett Savoie, one of the study's authors. In this case, you can really make the most of A and B in one material. And that's totally unheard of."
In addition, the team found that by adding the molecule, the perovskite remained stable at temperatures up to 100°C. This is important for things that need direct exposure to sunlight and can also be used in electronic devices.