Moon photovoltaics utilizing lunar regolith and halide perovskites

Imagine a permanent moonbase, a village, or even a city on the Moon powered by the near-constant solar illumination at the lunar south pole. The problem: transporting enough conventional solar cells to the Moon, to supply lunar living, large habitats, research, construction, and first industrial activities. Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel solution that saves 99% of material transport weight and thus costs. Our approach utilizes the available regolith on the Moon to fabricate moonglass that serves as substrate and encapsulation to fabricate resilient moonglass/perovskite solar cells and modules. With ultrathin, defect-tolerant perovskite absorbers, this requires minimal material supply from Earth and is scalable to produce solar cells on the Moon with minimal equipment, resilient fabrication processes, and lowest energy payback times. Our hybrid approach outperforms strategies that rely on solar cells from Earth while avoiding complex and technology-intensive mining, extraction, and purification of semiconductors on the Moon. Being highly resilient to the harsh radiation environment, our moonglass/perovskite solar cells thus pave the way for sustainable lunar-energy solutions.