Beyond the Lab-Scale: Perovskite Photovoltaic Fabrication and Industrial Assessment with Automated Slot-Die Coater

During the last 15 years, perovskite (PVK) photovoltaics (PVs) attained immense progress in single junction devices and, nowadays, spearhead the development of commercially viable 2-T tandem devices. This achievement became possible due to the exceptional properties of this material class, permitting not only power conversion efficiencies beyond 26%, but also low-cost fabrication from solution by common printing techniques. A wide consensus of researchers and technologist is reached, considering perovskite semiconductors feasible for industrial-scale fabrication alongside the well-establish silicon technology. While laboratory-scale work enabled fast material screening, characterization and process analysis, the transfer of the technology to industry is often not sufficiently treated. Most likely, in situ quality assessment is needed to ensure stable output for failure analysis early in the device fabrication. Here, we present a unique toolkit for simulating industrial conditions by employing a fully automated slot-die coater, sample handling, gas quenching as well as in situ characterization. We succeed in re-creating conditions of high-throughput industrial fabrication in a model box of about 10 m^3 under ambient atmosphere. Using the model box, we can investigate the feasibility of large-scale perovskite fabrication in a very cost-effective manner, identifying possible failure modes and predicting fabrication yield in a close-to-realistic model environment.