Austin Kuba

Key advances in perovskite solar cells in 2025 - Nature Reviews Clean Technology Perovskite photovoltaics entered a transformative phase in 2025, characterized by the widespread transition from n–i–p to p–i–n architectures, rapid progress in tandem device integration and improvements in long-term operational stability. These advances collectively highlight the maturation of perovskite solar cells towards commercial viability and industrial scalability.

From our year in review: Key advances in perovskite solar cells in 2025

Co-crystal engineering of a two-dimensional perovskite phase for perovskite solar modules with improved efficiency and stability - Nature Energy Two-dimensional perovskites enable high efficiency in perovskite photovoltaics but compromise operational stability. Yaghoobi Nia et al. form two-dimensional perovskite co-crystals with neutral templating molecules, improving the stability of perovskite solar modules.

Narges Yaghoobi Nia et al. form 2D perovskite co-crystals with neutral templating molecules, improving the stability of perovskite solar modules.

Atomistic origins of anharmonic lattice dynamics and thermal expansion in perovskite photovoltaics - Nature Energy Metal halide perovskites exhibit anharmonic lattice vibrations, which lead to high rates of thermal expansion in solar cells. In this Review, Julian A. Steele links the atomistic origins of these effects to the macroscopic thermo-mechanical properties of the materials and devices.

In this Review, Julian A. Steele links the atomistic origins of anharmonic lattice vibrations in metal halide perovskites to the macroscopic thermo-mechanical properties of the materials and solar cells.

F.B.I. Agents Search Georgia Election Center F.B.I. agents searched a Fulton County, Ga., election center for ballots from 2020, escalating an investigation of a heavily Democratic jurisdiction the president has criticized over his defeat.

FBI agents executed a search warrant on Wednesday for an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seeking to seize ballots in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate a jurisdiction that Trump has continued to criticize over his 2020 defeat in the state.

Yesterday, Jack Smith was able to tell the American people what he found from his extensive investigation: that Donald Trump committed criminal acts by trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Leading up to and on January 6th, Trump attempted to end our democracy.

A second American citizen has been killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, and DHS is blocking any independent investigation. When will my Republican colleagues speak out against this chaos? This can’t continue.

Masked government agents are conducting “show me your papers” stops, detaining 5-year-olds to use them as bait, and brutally murdering U.S. citizens.

Call it what it is — fascism.

History will not look fondly on politicians and so-called "leaders" of this country who stood by and enabled this.

Trump admin once again lying with speed and abandon with no regard to the facts

Alex Jeffrey Pretti Knew He Wanted to Help Others Shot and killed by immigration agents on a Minneapolis street, he wanted to be a ‘force of good in the world.’

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the man fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, an official said. He was a registered nurse who worked in the intensive-care unit at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis. nyti.ms/4t3ekJW

Minneapolis Live Updates: Videos of Shooting Appear to Contradict Federal Officials An I.C.U. nurse shot by federal agents was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said. A New York Times video analysis shows he was holding a phone, not a gun.

Federal agents had barred state investigators from the scene of Saturday’s shooting in Minneapolis, the head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said, despite the agency taking the rare step of obtaining a search warrant. “We’re in uncharted territory here,” he said. Follow updates.

We cannot hide from or cover up our history. These things happened and we must learn from them and do better , it’s not “corrosive ideology” to understand and learn from your countries mistakes.

Guidelines for robust and reproducible point defect simulations in crystals - Nature Reviews Materials Point defects critically influence material properties and require accurate computational modelling for reliable predictions. This Perspective outlines best practices for defect simulations using supe...

Defect simulations are notoriously sensitive to the many choices required 👨‍💻📊

In this Perspective, we highlight best practices in calculating 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 defect properties, hoping to establish guidelines for robust, transparent and reproducible defect simulations 🌟

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is madness. The United States has no right to control Greenland. NATO is one of our most important alliances. Countries cannot expand their borders by force or coercion. I do not support this government in any way. Vote these people out as soon as possible.

Praying for the people of Iran… horrible…

One week left to apply for a postdoc position in my research group. Want to research perovskite based optoelectronic devices? Check out this opportunity: uni-freiburg.de/stellenangeb...

Come do a PhD with us! 🧪☀️
This position is part of a collaborative project to understand and improve the stability of perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells. You'd be based at @uni-freiburg.de working in close collaboration with @fraunhoferise.bsky.social.
Deadline 30.11.2025

🚨 Only 15 days left! 🚨

A quick reminder that the deadline to apply for our PhD position is approaching fast. The 1st of November is the last day to apply!

🔁 Please share this post widely in your networks — it really helps us reach great candidates!

Unfortunately, the operational stability was reduced, which we provide preliminary investigations of, and discuss potential avenues for improvement. It’s critical to bring light to these issues!

More interestingly, the surface passivations homogenized the surface, This enabled 60cm2 spin coated perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with certified PCE of 28.9%! Likely there are better options for scalability, but I never believed this level would be possible with spin-coated absorbers.

We find PCl has a surface dipole that helps align the bands of the C60 and perovskite and induces a field effect passivation. Combining both passivations lead to certified Vocs >2V and the stack actually improves the PLQY, making this a passivating contact.

In this system, we find that pfbpa can chemically passivate surface defects, increasing the plqy of bare films. There may also be losses that come from new states arising from the interface of two materials, and other losses coming from poor band alignment of the perovskite and fullerene absorbers.

There is more than one kind of interfacial loss. One is surface defects that come from, for example, surface defects coming from unsatisfied bonds at the surface.

The core of the paper is the investigation of perfluorobenzenylphosphonic acid (pfbpa) and piperazinium chloride (PCl) as surface passivation molecules in perovskite solar cells.

60 cm2 perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with an efficiency of 28.9% by homogeneous passivation - Nature Communications The performance of inverted perovskite solar cells has been limited by non-radiative recombination at the perovskite surfaces. Here, authors employ phosphonic acids and piperazinium chloride for homogeneous passivation, achieving certified efficiency of 28.9% for 60 cm2 perovskite-silicon tandems.

Everyone says spin-coating is not a scalable technique for perovskite solar cells as we push for large scale manufacturing. I tend to agree. However, Kerem’s new paper pushes the limits of this assumption. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Power conversion efficiency of tandem devices fabricated in the presented study versus device area. The 1cm2 device has over 31%, the 4cm2 device over 30% and the 60 cm2 device 28.9%. On top are photographs of the mentioned devices.

Kerem pushed the limit of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells once more!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

wafer-scale homogeneous passivation enabled 60cm2 tandem devices with 29% efficiency! #tandem #solar #pv #perovskite

A full circle moment: presenting the results of one of the research projects I came to Switzerland to join 3 years ago.

Our poster was featured at the ‘congress on trends in medical mycology’ and the ‘annual meeting of the swiss society of infectious diseases’, where I also gave a presentation.

That’s my girl!!! Always so proud of you ♥️

Really cool work! Congratulations 🎉

Andddd it's now out in Advanced Materials!
doi.org/10.1002/adma...

Here, we show a new method of transforming hydrogels into ceramics and metals with low conversion shrinkages and high material densities. (1/7)

#chemsky #matsky

A set of elevator buttons, one of which is labeled "1/0".

Every mathematical instinct I have would tell me not to push THAT button.