Towards the 10-Year Milestone of Monolithic Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells.

The perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell represents one of the most promising avenues for exceeding the Shockley-Queisser limit for single-junction solar cells at a reasonable cost. Remarkably, its efficiency has rapidly increased from 13.7% in 2015 to 34.

Industrial-Si-based photoanode for highly efficient and stable water splitting.

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an effective and sustainable method for solar energy harvesting. However, the technology is still far away from practical application because of the high cost and low efficiency. Here, we report a low-cost, stable and high-performing industrial-Si-based photoanode (n-Indus-Si/Co) that is fabricated by simple electrodeposition.

Ultrathin (∼30 µm) flexible monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell.

The efficiency of rigid perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells has reached 33.9%. However, there has been no report on flexible perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells due to the challenge of overcoming the poor light absorption of ultrathin silicon bottom cells while maintaining their mechanical flexibility.

Application of CRISPR-Cas system in the diagnosis and therapy of ESKAPE infections.

Antimicrobial-resistant ESKAPE (, , , , , and species) pathogens represent a global threat to human health. ESKAPE pathogens are the most common opportunistic pathogens in nosocomial infections, and a considerable number of their clinical isolates are not susceptible to conventional antimicrobial therapy. Therefore, innovative therapeutic strategies that can effectively deal with ESKAPE pathogens will bring huge social and economic benefits and ease the suffering of tens of thousands of patients.

n-Si/SiO /CoO -Mo Photoanode for Efficient Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation.

Green hydrogen is considered to be the key for solving the emerging energy and environmental issues. The photoelectrochemical (PEC) process for the production of green hydrogen has been widely investigated because solar power is clean and renewable. However, mass production in this way is still far away from reality.

Surface Reconstruction for Efficient and Stable Monolithic Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells with Greatly Suppressed Residual Strain.

Despite the swift rise in power conversion efficiency (PCE) to more than 32%, the instability of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells is still one of the key obstacles to practical application and is closely related to the residual strain of perovskite films. Herein, a simple surface reconstruction strategy is developed to achieve a global incorporation of butylammonium cations at both surface and bulk grain boundaries by post-treating perovskite films with a mixture of N,N-dimethylformamide and n-butylammonium iodide in isopropanol solvent, enabling strain-free perovskite films with simultaneously reduced defect density, suppressed ion migration, and improved energy level alignment. As a result, the corresponding single-junction perovskite solar cells yield a champion PCE of 21.

Long-chain anionic surfactants enabling stable perovskite/silicon tandems with greatly suppressed stress corrosion.

Despite the remarkable rise in the efficiency of perovskite-based solar cells, the stress-induced intrinsic instability of perovskite active layers is widely identified as a critical hurdle for upcoming commercialization. Herein, a long-alkyl-chain anionic surfactant additive is introduced to chemically ameliorate the perovskite crystallization kinetics via surface segregation and micellization, and physically construct a glue-like scaffold to eliminate the residual stresses. As a result, benefiting from the reduced defects, suppressed ion migration and improved energy level alignment, the corresponding unencapsulated perovskite single-junction and perovskite/silicon tandem devices exhibit impressive operational stability with 85.

Additive Engineering of the CuSCN Hole Transport Layer for High-Performance Perovskite Semitransparent Solar Cells.

CuSCN has been widely considered a promising candidate for low-cost and high-stable hole transport material in perovskite semitransparent solar cells (STSCs). However, the low conductivity of the solution-processed CuSCN hole transport layer (HTL) hinders the hole extraction and transport in devices, which makes it hard to achieve devices with high performance. Herein, we report a facile additive engineering approach to optimize the p conductivity of CuSCN HTLs in perovskite STSCs.

Light-Promoted Electrostatic Adsorption of High-Density Lewis Base Monolayers as Passivating Electron-Selective Contacts.

Achieving efficient passivating carrier-selective contacts (PCSCs) plays a critical role in high-performance photovoltaic devices. However, it is still challenging to achieve both an efficient carrier selectivity and high-level passivation in a sole interlayer due to the thickness dependence of contact resistivity and passivation quality. Herein, a light-promoted adsorption method is demonstrated to establish high-density Lewis base polyethylenimine (PEI) monolayers as promising PCSCs.

Rear-Sided Passivation by SiNx:H Dielectric Layer for Improved Si/PEDOT:PSS Hybrid Heterojunction Solar Cells.

Unlabelled: Silicon/organic hybrid solar cells have recently attracted great attention because they combine the advantages of silicon (Si) and the organic cells. In this study, we added a patterned passivation layer of silicon nitride (SiNx:H) onto the rear surface of the Si substrate in a Si/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (

Pedot: PSS) hybrid solar cell, enabling an improvement of 0.6 % in the power conversion efficiency (PCE).

Wafer-Scale Integration of Inverted Nanopyramid Arrays for Advanced Light Trapping in Crystalline Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells.

Crystalline silicon thin film (c-Si TF) solar cells with an active layer thickness of a few micrometers may provide a viable pathway for further sustainable development of photovoltaic technology, because of its potentials in cost reduction and high efficiency. However, the performance of such cells is largely constrained by the deteriorated light absorption of the ultrathin photoactive material. Here, we report an efficient light-trapping strategy in c-Si TFs (~20 μm in thickness) that utilizes two-dimensional (2D) arrays of inverted nanopyramid (INP) as surface texturing.

Realization of 13.6% Efficiency on 20 μm Thick Si/Organic Hybrid Heterojunction Solar Cells via Advanced Nanotexturing and Surface Recombination Suppression.

Hybrid silicon/polymer solar cells promise to be an economically feasible alternative energy solution for various applications if ultrathin flexible crystalline silicon (c-Si) substrates are used. However, utilization of ultrathin c-Si encounters problems in light harvesting and electronic losses at surfaces, which severely degrade the performance of solar cells. Here, we developed a metal-assisted chemical etching method to deliver front-side surface texturing of hierarchically bowl-like nanopores on 20 μm c-Si, enabling an omnidirectional light harvesting over the entire solar spectrum as well as an enlarged contact area with the polymer.