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Former Florida State University postdoctoral researcher Sarah Wieghold, left, and FSU Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Lea Nienhaus. Their research is helping to understand the fundamental processes in a material known as perovskites, work that could lead to more efficient solar cells that also do a better job of resisting degradation. Credit: FSU

The designers of solar cells know their creations must contend with a wide range of temperatures and all sorts of weather conditions—conditions that can impact their efficiency and useful lifetime.

Florida State University Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Lea Nienhaus and former FSU postdoctoral researcher Sarah Wieghold are helping to understand the fundamental processes in a material known as perovskites, work that could lead to more efficient solar cells that also do a better job of resisting degradation. They found that small tweaks to the chemical makeup of the materials as well as the magnitude of the electrical field it is exposed to can greatly affect the overall material stability.

Their latest work is published in a pair of studies in Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Journal of Applied Physics .