Nanoscale impurities degrade halide perovskites – Physics World

For the first time, researchers in the UK and Japan have identified the locations where materials known as perovskites begin to degrade. This degradation, which is caused by the formation of defects that act as “traps” for charge carriers moving through the material’s crystalline structure, is a barrier to commercializing perovskite-based devices such as solar cells because it reduces their efficiency over time. The new work could therefore help improve the stability and performance of perovskites by pointing the way toward controlling the defects’ formation.