The goal of this VIP is to develop scalable approaches to fabricate highly efficient and environmentally stable printable photovoltaic devices based on metal halide perovskites (or simply, perovskites). Perovskites are materials with performance characteristics comparable to silicon, but at a much lower weight and cost; as such, perovskite-based technologies have the potential to disrupt the renewable energy space. However, significant efforts are needed to improve the chemical and thermomechanical stability of these materials. These efforts are highly interdisciplinary and provide many opportunities for students to learn with and from each other. The driving questions behind this project are: (1) How are the chemical and mechanical instabilities in printable electronics interrelated? And (2) what are scalable and low-cost approaches to mitigating these instabilities?

Students involved in this project will conduct research on one or more of the following topics:

• Development of ink formulations with varying chemical compositions
• Design of components for roll-to-roll printing of photoactive layers
• Simulating intermolecular interactions in the solution- and solid-states

More information about the Printz Research Group can be found here.