Researchers at Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering have developed a stable alternative to using silicon in solar panels. The team, led by associate professor Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, hopes to use this technology to bring production of solar panels back to the U.S., along with reducing associated costs. Currently, most solar cells are manufactured in China due to the country’s natural abundance of silicon. Those developed at Georgia Tech, however, do not rely on silicon. Instead, they use perovskite, a material made of iodine, lead, and other elements. Perovskite and silicon perform almost identically, with only one drawback: silicon solar cells can last for twenty years, whereas perovskite cells only last for one year. This is where Correa-Baena’s team comes in. By embedding titanium into the top layer of a solar cell, they become much more resilient to high temperatures, and therefore can last significantly longer. In the future, this could revolutionize the sustainable energy industry and increase domestic solar cell production.¹

1. “Researchers Build Stable Solar Panel without Silicon | Research.” Gatech.edu, 24 Feb. 2025, research.gatech.edu/feature/solar-panel. Accessed 9 Mar. 2025. ↩︎