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Solar material (from 26) manufacture into a solar device, per-
ovskites are easily processed from solution
erial that not only harvests energy from at room temperature to around 300oF —
the sun but also has the added bonus of and for manufacturers, these lower pro-
having a naturally, spontaneously formed cessing temperatures would dramatically
electric field — the possibilities across the reduce energy costs.
solar energy and electronics industries are
pretty exciting,” said co-senior author Pei- Long-standing challenges
dong Yang. Despite their potential boost to the solar
energy sector, perovskite solar materi-
Yang is a leading nanomaterials expert als won’t be market-ready until research-
known for his pioneering work in one- ers overcome long-standing challenges in
dimensional semiconducting nanowires for product synthesis and stability, and mate-
novel solar cell technologies and artificial rial sustainability.
photosynthesis.
A few years ago, first author Ye Zhang,
who was a UC Berkeley graduate student
researcher in Yang’s lab at the time, won-
dered how she could make a lead-free fer-
roelectric perovskite.
She theorized that placing a germanium
atom in the center of a perovskite would
distort its crystallinity just enough to en-
gender ferroelectricity. On top of that, a
germanium-based perovskite would free
the material of lead. (Zhang is now a post-
doctoral researcher at Northwestern Uni-
versity.)
Peidong Yang at a probe station in his lab at Hildebrand Hall on
the UC Berkeley campus.
Partnered with Molecular Foundry
A new device generation Yang, Zhang, and team partnered with
CGB could also advance a new generation Sinéad Griffin, a staff scientist in Berke-
of switching devices, sensors, and super- ley Lab’s Molecular Foundry and Materials
stable memory devices that respond to Sciences Division who specializes in the
light, said co-senior author Ramamoorthy design of new materials for a variety of
Ramesh, who held titles of senior faculty applications, including quantum computing
scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sci- and microelectronics.
ences Division and is now vice president of
research at Rice University. With support from the Materials Project,
Griffin used supercomputers at the Na-
Perovskite solar films are typically made tional Energy Research Scientific Comput-
using low-cost solution-coating methods, ing Center (NERSC) to perform advanced
such as spin coating or ink jet printing. theoretical calculations based on a method
known as density-functional theory.
And unlike silicon, which requires a pro-
o
cessing temperature of about 2,732 F, to next page
