Organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells have emerged recently in a spectacular fashion achieving efficiencies of 22.7% promising a sustainable energy source for the generations to come. Perovskites can be processed through low-cost solution-techniques and they have exceptional material properties such as remarkably high absorption over the visible spectrum, low exciton binding energy, charge carrier diffusion lengths in the μm range, a sharp optical band edge, and a tunable band gap from 1 to 3 eV by interchanging the individual perovskite components.

While the race for efficiency continues, other research aspects are becoming more and more urgent. This includes the upscaling from lab-scale devices to industrial modules, the environmental assessment in terms of toxicity, and the long-term stability of the perovskite absorber, perhaps the most urgent remaining questions in the field.

Furthermore, perovskite semiconductors can be used beyond photovoltaics and accordingly non-photovoltaic, perovskite-based applications have established research fields in their own right, e.g. tandem solar cells, wearable electronics and detection. As a research community, we can benefit from this emerging research by exchanging our experience and long-term outlook.

Accordingly, this symposium explores the fundamental challenges in the field with a focus on the material’s properties that make perovskites so remarkable and the current understanding of the device physics. In addition, there will be sessions to promote research on perovskites for non-photovoltaic applications. Finally, there are designated sessions on the progress of long-term stability, the evolution towards modules, and assessment of toxicity in order to provide an outlook on how close perovskite solar cells are to commercialization.

chemical composition ion-solid interactions nanostructure organometallic