Credit: Image from Science. Reprinted with permission from AAAS
Scientists made a promising material for photovoltaics into atomically thin sheets that could be used for new solar panels and many other electronic applications. The material is a hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite. To make the thin sheets, scientists grew crystals from a chemical solution, resulting in a well-defined shape and a large lateral dimension (as shown in the inset images). These atomically thin, 2D hybrid perovskite sheets emit light (labeled as PL (photoluminescence) Intensity in the graph) whose color (wavelength) is tunable by changing sheet thickness and composition (i through vi).