Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin

Perovskite and silicon are proving to be a formidable duo in the world of solar cells, and now they’ve hit a new record efficiency. A team at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) have developed solar cells with an efficiency of over 32%.

Silicon has long been the gold standard for solar cells, but it’s approaching its limit. Perovskite is emerging as a promising partner, and now engineers have achieved a new efficiency record for this kind of tandem solar cell – almost 30 percent.

Solar cells are constantly improving on the road to maximum efficiency. Now, three records have been broken by two different devices, including one that pushes the highest overall solar conversion efficiency towards the 50-percent mark.

For a few years scientists have predicted a fifth kind of phosphorus should be possible, but it had yet to be confirmed. Now, researchers in Germany have managed to show that blue phosphorus does exist, and mapped out its different properties.