{
  "id": 19032947,
  "title": "Liquid-assisted crystal growth cuts perovskite defects for efficient solar cells and LEDs",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/08/liquid-assisted-crystal-growth-cuts-perovskite-defects-for-efficient",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-11-08T22:00:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-11-liquid-crystal-growth-perovskite-defects.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A research team led by professor Seong Sik Shin at Sungkyunkwan University, in collaboration with the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, the University of California, San Diego, and Princeton University, has developed a new method for growing perovskite crystals that significantly reduces defects in the material. This advancement could lead to more efficient solar cells and LEDs. Perovskites are promising materials for next-generation electronic devices due to their low manufacturing costs and simple processing, but they often suffer from defects that can reduce performance. The team discovered that mixing methylammonium chloride with a zinc halide creates a eutectic mixture that melts at a lower temperature than its individual components. When this mixture is gently heated to around 100°C, it forms a thin liquid layer at the grain boundaries of the perovskite film. In this liquid state, atoms can move much faster than in solid crystals, allowing small grains to merge and grow into larger, cleaner crystals with fewer defects. As the liquid evaporates during thermal annealing, the remaining zinc helps suppress defects. The resulting films showed the highest quality reported for perovskite thin films, with a carrier lifetime of 295 μs and a surface recombination velocity of 0.3 cm/s, both of which are among the best ever reported. These improvements have been achieved using solution processing, which can produce surfaces of high quality similar to those of silicon. The new technique has been demonstrated in large-area devices, which is a significant step towards commercialization. The researchers also showed that the same device architecture can be used to create both a high-efficiency solar cell and a high-efficiency LED. This single device structure could simplify the design and manufacturing of optoelectronic devices. The study was a joint effort led by professor Shin of Sungkyunkwan University, professor David P. Fenning of the University of California, San Diego, and professor Dane W. deQuilettes of Princeton University, with co-first authors Dr. Jason J. Yoo, Dr. Connor J. Dolan, and others.",
  "summary": "A research team led by professor Seong Sik Shin of the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT) at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), in international collaboration with the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), the University of California, San Diego, and Princeton University, has developed a next-generation perovskite semiconductor thin film with dramatically reduced…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}