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<\/a>\u201cWe didn\u2019t know when we sent it exactly what to expect,\u201d McMillon-Brown said. \u201cIt was kind of like opening a door and not knowing what is going to be on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If humanity is to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and Mars, astronauts will need reliable power sources to sustain their habitats and science instruments. NASA researchers think perovskite\u00a0could be used in solar cells\u00a0that are thinner, cheaper, lighter, and more flexible than those currently made of silicon or group III and V elements on the periodic table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although perovskites had been\u00a0put through the experimental paces on Earth, flying in space meant the material could be pummeled by vacuum, extreme temperatures, radiation, and light stressors simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is no ground analog, no machine that will do all of those crazy things to it at the same time quite like the International Space Station,\u201d McMillon-Brown said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 (MISSE). 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After hurtling around in orbit and plunging in and out of direct sunlight for nearly a year, the film returned to Earth in January 2021. The sample was analyzed by partners at the University of California Merced, led by Professor Sayantani Ghosh, where scientists studied what happened to it and compared it to a control sample that stayed on the ground. Partners at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory also contributed to the post-flight analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a valuable quality, McMillon-Brown says, because it means perovskite solar cells could be used in space during long-duration missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what about the space environment gave our film this superpower,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other takeaway was that temperatures in space influenced how perovskite\u2019s crystals were arranged, changing how they absorbed light for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d McMillon-Brown said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up next, McMillon-Brown and her team are isolating what specific parts of the space environment transformed the perovskite. And soon, they\u2019ll be combing through results from complete perovskite solar cell experiments that have flown on the space station in the time since the first sample was returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of people doubted that these materials could ever be strong enough to deal with the harsh environment of space,\u201d McMillon-Brown said. \u201cNot only do they survive, but in some ways, they thrived. I love thinking of the applications of our research and that we\u2019re going to be able to meet the power needs of missions that are not feasible with current solar technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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