Super thin solar cells hit new efficiency benchmark

The lab of Aditya Mohite of Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering discovered that sunlight itself contracts the space between atomic layers in 2D perovskites enough to improve the material’s photovoltaic efficiency by up to 18%, an astounding leap in a field where progress is often measured in fractions of a percent.

“In 10 years, the efficiencies of perovskites have skyrocketed from about 3% to over 25%,” Mohite says. “Other semiconductors have taken about 60 years to get there. That’s why we’re so excited.”