Insect eyes offer insight into manufacture of perovskites

According to Reinhold Dauskardt, a professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, perovskites are promising, low-cost materials that convert sunlight to electricity as efficiently as conventional solar cells made of silicon. Despite their promise, they are also prone to deteriorating when exposed to heat, moisture or mechanical stress.

“They would barely survive the manufacturing process, let alone be durable long-term in the environment,” said Dauskardt, lead author of a study detailing the research team’s results in Energy & Environmental Science (E&ES).

Most commercial solar devices use a planar design, which doesn't work well with perovskite solar cells.

"Perovskites are the most fragile materials ever tested in the history of our lab," said graduate student Nicholas Rolston, a co-lead author of the E&ES study. "This fragility is related to the brittle, salt-like crystal structure of perovskite, which has mechanical properties similar to table salt."

To address the durability challenge, the Stanford team turned to nature.