Tandems have the power

by Erkan Aydin, Stefaan De Wolf
Perspective Year: 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi6278

Bibliography

Aydin, E., De Wolf, S.

Abstract

One way to increase the efficiency of a solar cell is to optimize it to the wide spectrum of sunlight for conversion into electricity. In this vein, a tandem solar cell may comprise a top cell that absorbs high-energy photons and a bottom cell that absorbs low-energy photons. Such a device can be fabricated as a stack of layers, with the top and bottom cell interconnected to each other. Monolithic integration of a perovskite solar cell and silicon solar cell into a tandem device is a promising path toward high-performance photovoltaics (PVs) at affordable cost. On pages 59 and 63 of this issue, Chin et al. (1) and Mariotti et al. (2), respectively, report different approaches to achieving power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) in perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells of >30%. Overcoming this threshold provides confidence that high-performance, low-cost PVs can be brought to the market.