Demand for photovoltaic panels has surged in the past year, driven by the Green Transition, the Green Deal, and various other initiatives that have increased interest and adoption rates. Today most solar cells are based on silicon semiconductors that are reaching their theoretical limit in sunlight to electricity conversion efficiency. Perovskite semiconductors are a promising upgrade to photovoltaics. When perovskite semiconductors are added to silicon semiconductors it increases the power conversion efficiency from the solar cells from 26 to 36 %. Such an increase in efficiency leads to an important further decrease of the cost of electricity. Currently, there is no reliable, scalable, fast and economic method to deposit perovskite semiconductors on Silicon wafers. This is in part because the surface of the Silicon in a solar cell is not flat but has micrometer size pyramids that are needed to increase the absorption of sunlight (see Figure 1a). In the ERC funded Advanced Grant “HELD” we have developed a deposition process that is completely solvent free, compatible with a wide range of perovskite precursors, operates at moderate vacuum levels, leads to high quality perovskite films and conformably coats the pyramids of the Silicon solar cells (Figure 1b). The objective of the ERC-funded APERITIF project is to increase the size of the lab-scale tool from 9 to 96 cm2 and demonstrate the uniformity and repeatability of the deposition process. After demonstrating that the process works at these larger scales for different perovskite composition, the objective is to attract equipment manufacturers, and solar cell panel producers, with the goal of licensing this process and scaling up to an industrial size prototype as the intermediate step to large scale deployment to the photovoltaic production industry.
