Most solar panels on the market today are made of silicon, but perovskite solar cells have the potential to accelerate the growth of photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing in the United States because they're much cheaper to make and have shown performance potential in the lab.

The most commonly used deposition method in the laboratory, called spin coating, produces devices with the highest efficiency, but the process wastes more than 90 percent of the chemicals used, the so-called perovskite ink. Spin coating also works best on cells smaller than four square inches, but there isn't an easy way to enable this technology to be used on a larger surface.

The NREL researchers examined potential scalable deposition methods, including:

* Blade coating, which uses a blade to spread the chemical solution on substrates to form wet thin films. The process can be adapted for roll-to-roll manufacturing, with flexible substrates moving on a roller beneath a stationary blade similar to how newspapers are printed. Blade coating wastes less of the ink than spin coating.
* Slot-die coating, which relies on a reservoir to supply the precursor ink in order to apply ink over the substrate. The process hasn't been as well explored as other methods and so far has demonstrated lower efficiency than blade coating. But the reproducibility of slot-die coating is better than blade coating when the ink is well-developed, so this is more applicable for roll-to-roll manufacturing.
* Ink-jet printing, which uses a small nozzle to disperse the precursor ink. The process has been used to make small-scale solar cells, but whether it is suitable for the high-volume, large-area production will depend on the printing speed and device structure.