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Lead-Free Perovskites Push Solar Cells Toward Safer High-Efficiency Designs

Lead-free perovskite solar cells are emerging as lower-toxicity alternatives to lead-based devices, but they still face major barriers in efficiency, stability, defect control, and scalable fabrication. This review shows how compositional engineering, crystallization control, passivation, and device architecture have enabled tin-based cells to reach 17.13% efficiency, while highlighting the durability trade-offs that still limit commercialization.

1 Jun 2026

Introducing Solira: Our New Microscope for Time-Resolved Photoluminescence and Advanced Materials Research

PicoQuant, a world leading company in photoluminescence instrumentation, announces the launch of Solira, a new microscope for time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements and advanced materials characterization.

From PicoQuant 30 May 2026

Combining AI and Automation to Revolutionize Industrial Catalyst Engineering

Catalysts help make modern life possible. They quietly drive the chemical reactions that produce fuels, fertilizers, plastics and many other industrial products. But developing a new commercial catalyst can take as long as two decades.

29 May 2026

New ‘Super Hydrogel’ Pulls Drinking Water From Thin Air for Months at a Time

Researchers have developed a more durable moisture-harvesting hydrogel that resists metal-triggered degradation, allowing it to continuously pull drinkable water from the air for months.

22 May 2026

Grounded Metamaterials Keep Their Shape-Shifting Mechanics Stable

Grounded reconfigurable metamaterials preserved nearly identical displacement fields across rectangular, parallelogram, and random geometries, overcoming a key shape-performance trade-off in mechanical metamaterials. By combining transformation elasticity, grounded body torques, and Willis springs, the system enabled programmable deformation modes, including asymmetric tension without bending and tension-induced buckling.

20 May 2026

Scientists Use Powerful X-Rays to Visualize Hidden Dynamics Inside Opaque Fluids

Using powerful X-rays and computer models, researchers at Argonne and the University of Chicago linked nanoscale particle motion to surprising flow behaviors in soft materials.

14 May 2026

Isotopically Labelled Material – Depth Profiling to Determine Ion Exchange and Fundamental Materials Research

Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry is a surface analysis technique known for high sensitivity and excellent depth resolution in the analysis of solid materials.

From Hiden Analytical 12 May 2026

New Method Enables Ferroelectric Switching in Aluminum Nitride Semiconductors

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed they can "write" ferroelectric regions into aluminum nitride by using a helium ion beam to create precise defects while keeping the crystal intact.

11 May 2026

Scientists Discover Predictable Patterns to Design New Superconductors

Many breakthrough materials have been found by accident. The first superconductor, for example, was discovered while researchers were looking for something else.

6 May 2026

New Membrane Technology Hub is Tackling Cancer Drugs, Carbon Capture and the Global Water Crisis

A new European research network is accelerating innovations in membrane science that could cut the cost of life-saving cancer treatments, pull CO2 directly from industrial emissions, and deliver clean water to millions — all with technologies thinner than a human hair.

6 May 2026

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