10-Month Voyage Proves Solar Cell Material Survives, Thrives In Space
that are thinner, cheaper, lighter, and more flexible than those currently made of silicon or group III and V elements on the periodic table., flying in space meant the material could be pummeled by vacuum, extreme temperatures, radiation, and light stressors simultaneously.
The 1-inch by 1-inch flight sample was created in a lab in early 2019. Once the thin film met strict safety requirements, it rocketed off to the space station in March 2020 as a part of the Materials International Space Station Experiment . Astronauts performed a spacewalk to open the suitcase-like MISSE platform and attach it to the outside of the space station, exposing the perovskite and other experiments to the extreme conditions of space.
Researchers had two key takeaways. Temperature swings during orbit constantly shrank and expanded the sample, putting stress on it and changing how it interacted with light. But they discovered something surprising — when the space-traveling perovskite was bathed in light back on Earth, its built-up stress relaxed, and its sunlight-absorbing qualities were restored, unlike the control sample, which degraded when exposed to the same conditions.
“The fact that the one in space holds a favorable arrangement for longer and can work at much lower temperatures is also a strong benefit for this material,” McMillon-Brown said.
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