2025 Solar Energy Journal Best Paper award to “Critical analysis of decision variables for high-throughput experimentation (HTE) with perovskite solar cells”
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have seen remarkable efficiency improvements over the past decade; however, their complex fabrication process remains a challenge for scaling up to industrial production, in addition to concerns about stability. Given the promising outlook of this technology, it is necessary to systematically understand the decision variables associated with the complete fabrication process, which can reduce the transition time in taking the technology from lab-scale demonstrations to reliable industrial-scale manufacturing. This is particularly important considering the intrinsic sensitivity of perovskite materials to processing conditions, combined with concerns over long-term stability and reproducibility.
In this context, a recent study published by researchers at EPFL, entitled Critical analysis of decision variables for high-throughput experimentation (HTE) with perovskite solar cells, has been selected by Solar Energy Journal for the Best Paper Award (2025) in the category of Photovoltaic Cells and Cell physics. The work was carried out by the lead author Naveen Bhati, who is a PhD student at IPESE Group in collaboration with the Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials (GMF) group led by Prof. Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin.
Although PSCs offer exceptional optoelectronic properties such as high absorption coefficients and tunable bandgaps, their fabrication involves a highly interconnected sequence of material and process choices. Small variations in the precursor chemistry, deposition parameters, or post-treatment conditions can lead to large fluctuations in the device performance. Traditional experimental routes are inadequate and inefficient in navigating such a high-dimensional design space.
The EPFL researchers propose a systematic methodology to evaluate the decision variables involved at each step of the perovskite solar cell fabrication process, integrating the perspectives from material science, process engineering, and systems optimization. The authors describe an approach to:
- Identify key decision variables related to material selection, process techniques, and cell design
- Develop mechanistic models for different deposition and post-processing steps, enabling quantitative assessment of the effect of decision variables on different key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Formulate a multi-objective optimization problem to find optimal process designs for various KPIs, including energy consumption, manufacturing cost, throughput, etc.
By adopting a holistic view of the fabrication process, this approach aims to facilitate the transition of perovskite solar cells from laboratory research to industrial-scale production. The insights provided can help solar researchers and engineers systematically optimize the process for high-throughput experimentation and scalable manufacturing of PSCs.
Check out the full article in Solar Energy journal for more details on this comprehensive framework for perovskite solar cell fabrication.
The list of authors include: Naveen Bhati, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, and François Maréchal
#perovskites #solarenergy #manufacturing #optimization #high-throughput experimentation