In recent years, lead-free perovskites have generated great excitement in the photovoltaics research arena as absorbers for environmentally-friendly and easy-to-fabricate photovoltaics. In their latest Perspective, Prof. Pecunia and collaborators discuss the status and prospects of this rapidly growing research area. 

The Perspective firstly surveys the photovoltaic performance of lead-free perovskites in relation to the wide range of compositions and structures that have been explored to date. Furthermore, the Perspective identifies research directions and priority areas that deserve further investigation, in regard to promising classes of materials as well as their physical characterization (e.g., charge transport, defect properties, and stability). Finally, the Perspective provides a fresh look at the target application areas of lead-free perovskite photovoltaics, identifying attractive opportunities in tandem photovoltaics, indoor photovoltaics, and building-integrated photovoltaics. This Perspective thus provides direction for the future exploration of lead-free perovskites toward the realization of their full photovoltaic potential. 

This paper has been published in the journal APL Materials, where it can be freely downloaded under the terms of an open-access license.


Reference
V. Pecunia†*, L. G. Occhipinti†, A. Chakraborty, Y. Pan, Y. Peng, Lead-Free Halide Perovskite Photovoltaics: Challenges, Open Questions, and Opportunities, APL Materials, 8(10), 100901, 2020. DOI: 10.1063/5.0022271