Researchers from Australia’s UNSW Sydney collaborated with UtmoLight to achieve a world-record certified stabilized power conversion efficiency of 23.5% for a large-area perovskite solar submodule. The 30 × 30 cm submodule, with an aperture area of 676 cm², surpassed the previous efficiency benchmark by 0.6 percentage points.

The new efficiency benchmark further narrows the efficiency gap with small-area laboratory cells, typically around 1 cm².

According to the researchers, the record demonstrates perovskite’s potential to maintain high efficiency required for scalable manufacturing and widespread use in solar modules.

“Materials that work exceptionally well in a small laboratory device do not necessarily behave in the same way under scaled-up processing conditions. Our focus is therefore not simply on finding high-performance materials, but on understanding how to design materials and interfaces that remain effective under the conditions required for large-area fabrication,” said Xiaojing Hao from UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering.

UtmoLight contributed expertise in large-area processing and module fabrication, helping translate laboratory materials and device concepts into a high-performance submodule.

Perovskites have gained traction in recent years because they can convert sunlight into electricity with very high efficiency and offer the prospect of relatively low-cost manufacturing.

Researchers worldwide are exploring new opportunities by combining perovskites with traditional silicon cells to create tandem solar cells. The two materials can capture different parts of the solar spectrum and therefore work well together to turn more of the sunlight into electricity.

In the future, perovskites are expected to be used more often as an additional layer on top of existing silicon solar cells, potentially allowing manufacturers to boost module output without proportionately increasing size.

However, perovskites are not yet ideal for widespread use because it can degrade when exposed to moisture, heat, and prolonged sunlight. Large perovskite modules also require greater control over film uniformity, crystallization, defects, interfaces, and electrical interconnection.

The researchers eliminated the conventional nickel oxide layer used in perovskite solar cells, which can adversely react with perovskite materials and contribute to instability. They developed an alternative fabrication process that enables a hole-selective contact to form directly during manufacturing, reducing the need for additional processing steps.

The breakthrough also lets researchers assess scalability earlier in development, rather than spending years developing materials that may not suit industrial-scale manufacturing. This is important for future perovskite technologies, where the transition from laboratory research to large-scale manufacturing remains a key challenge.

The researchers plan to develop a full-scale perovskite solar module with an area of 2.8 m² in the coming months, targeting an efficiency of approximately 18%–19%. However, the technology needs further improvements in efficiency, reproducibility, and long-term stability before it can be widely deployed.

In January 2026, a team of UNSW researchers set a world-record efficiency for antimony chalcogenide-based solar cells, achieving a certified power conversion efficiency of 10.7%.

In the same month, UNSW researchers found that nearly a fifth of approximately 11,000 photovoltaic samples analyzed globally degraded at rates 1.5 times higher than average, highlighting the risks of premature module degradation and the need for improved testing standards.