Mission Critical | Silicon Solar Is Hitting Its Limit. What Comes Next? | Blake Martin and Jack Manzella of Sofab Inks

Yeah, absolutely.

So perovskites is essentially just a name for a class of materials.

It stands for ABX3, A site being a cationic species, B site being a metallic, typically a lead center.

And then lastly, the X3 is denoting a halide group.

So it is just a name for a material structure.

The specific formulation by which most perovskite are synonymous with solar panel technologies is a methyl ammonium lead iodide or a form of a dimium lead iodide.

Getting too much in the weeds of actual chemical formulas here, but essentially all perovskites denotes is a specific class of materials that has been able to demonstrate photovoltaic properties that are coveted for solar applications, primarily replacing or even being complementary to existing crystalline silicon solar panels.

And kind of give us the background on this technology and perovskite.

We talked about C60.

So give us give listeners some background on what that is and how the technology is kind of improved and the research you guys are building on top of.

Yeah, for sure.

So most people probably aren't familiar with the kind of development cycle that's gone on with solar.

Crystal and silicon is the active ingredient in a lot of solar panels.

But there's been a lot of other solar technologies that have evolved over time.

There was a period where organic photovoltaics were a leading technology candidate.

That transitioned into what's known as dye-sensitized solar cells.

And then shortly after DSSC, dye-sensitized solar cells, evolved into perovskite so the first perovskite solar cell on record that was ever published was back in 2011 by Miyasaka-san I believe I'm at a Japanese university don't want to cite a specific one and give credit where credit's not due but that was back in 2011 and since then it's had a meteoric rise in efficiency that's been unrivaled by any other viable solar technology Up to where I believe the record today for a single junction perovskite cell is around 27.2, 27.3%.

Please go back and reference NREL.

It does a good job of coagulating a lot of this data and publishing it available for everyone.

So a lot of solar technologies have come and gone.

Perovskite is the one that has lasted because of the demonstration of its performance and ability for solar applications.

And to get into what Sofab Inks is developing, literally an ink that can be printed onto materials that now make them able to generate electricity through solar

power.

The long short of how perovskite is structured is you start with just a flat panel, a piece of glass or substrate of sorts.

You coat sequential layers on top of that glass.