Potent perovskites demand India make domestic manufacturing push

Perovskite solar cells are an exciting technology in the solar industry because they extract more power from a given area than silicon.

They get their name from the crystals they are made of, metal-halide perovskites. They absorb sunlight strongly, so require an active layer only a few hundred nanometres thick, which is three orders of magnitude thinner than silicon wafers.

Manufacturing perovskites also requires temperatures under 200°C while silicon cells are much less forgiving. So depending on other economic factors, the perovskites process may be less energy-intensive.