According to Dalian University of Technology, a student team from the School of Chemistry at the university has recently overcome key technical bottlenecks in improving the performance of perovskite solar cells. They have developed a new type of battery that combines high efficiency, high stability, and ultra-light flexibility, providing a critical solution for energy supply in near-space satellites, drones, airships, and other vehicles.

Traditional silicon solar cells are difficult to meet the requirements for lightweight and efficient energy supply due to their heavy weight and poor flexibility. Perovskite solar cells, with low specific gravity, ultra-thin design, and flexibility, are ideal choices for energy supply. However, their electrode systems face two core technical challenges: poor interface contact and mismatched energy levels.

To address these challenges, a student team from Dalian University of Technology with an average age of 22 years spent three years tackling the issues and proposed three innovative technologies: optimizing electrode structure through "dual carbon layer decoupling spray coating technology" to enhance interface contact and accelerate lateral charge transport; precisely regulating the local energy band structure of carbon electrodes using "metal single-atom loading technology"; and combining "interface coupling doping technology" to construct a continuous conjugated system on the functional layer surface, leveraging π-π stacking to strengthen interface coupling and significantly improve charge transfer efficiency.

The team conducted research progressively from electrode materials to electrode structures and then to adjacent interfaces. Final experimental data show that the study has refreshed the highest photoelectric conversion efficiency for carbon electrode perovskite solar cells. The battery can adapt to extreme conditions such as cyclic temperature changes from -60°C to -80°C, high temperatures of 230°C, and strong ultraviolet radiation. It can also achieve continuous stable operation for 1500 hours under unpackaged conditions, maintaining over 95% of the initial photoelectric conversion efficiency. "On this basis, we have also constructed a carbon electrode perovskite triboelectric nanogenerator, achieving complementarity between light energy and mechanical energy, and integrated it with a wireless sensing communication module to build a self-powered detection node," project leader Cheng Jiashuo told reporters.