Built around a hybrid vacuum and wet-chemical process, the Pero-Si-SCALE laboratory of the Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg gives industry partners a shared platform to test perovskite-silicon designs at full wafer size.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) has opened a new research facility in Freiburg dedicated to scaling perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells from the laboratory bench to industrial cell formats. Named Pero-Si-SCALE, the laboratory will be available to German and European module manufacturers as an independent R&D environment, equipped to handle wafers up to 210 by 210 millimetres using production-grade processes.
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While technically exacting, the architecture at the heart of the work is conceptually simple: A perovskite cell roughly 500 nanometres thick is deposited onto a conventional silicon solar cell, lifting the theoretical efficiency limit from 29.4 to 43.3 percent. For an industry that has spent two decades squeezing fractions of a percent from silicon, the prospect of a step change of that magnitude has, not surprisingly, focused minds across the sector.
“Photovoltaics is far from being ‘fully researched’,” said Prof. Dr Stefan Glunz, head of the photovoltaics division at Fraunhofer ISE, at the opening. “On the contrary, there is still a great deal to be gained here, and tandem solar cells are the key to achieving even greater efficiency. This means more solar energy in a smaller area and with less material usage.“
Pero-Si-SCALE is intended to bridge the awkward gap between laboratory proof-of-concept work, conducted at low Technology Readiness Levels, and commercial production. Designs developed at TRL 1 to 4 can be lifted onto industrial wafer formats and put through scalable, high-throughput manufacturing, with characterisation, analysis and module integration handled on the same site.
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On the processing side, Fraunhofer ISE has settled on what it terms the “hybrid route”, combining vacuum deposition with wet chemistry. The approach has already delivered laboratory peak efficiencies above 33 percent, and crucially permits the perovskite top cell to be applied to standard textured silicon wafers of the kind already produced in volume. That compatibility matters: it preserves the optical and electrical advantages of textured silicon, supports higher energy yields at module level, and avoids asking manufacturers to rip up their existing bottom-cell lines.
Fraunhofer ISE
The new facility builds directly on existing infrastructure. “The new laboratory infrastructure builds on 20 years of experience in industry-oriented development of silicon photovoltaics at the Photovoltaic Technology Evaluation Center (PV-TEC),” explained Priv.-Doz. Dr Ralf Preu, also head of the photovoltaics division at the institute. PV-TEC will continue to supply optimised silicon bottom cells to Pero-Si-SCALE, ensuring that the tandem work remains tethered to current production realities rather than drifting into a parallel laboratory universe.
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The remaining challenge is integration at scale. Bringing a varied set of thin-film deposition steps into line with established wafer-based silicon manufacturing is, by the institute’s own account, the chief hurdle to industrial implementation. Pero-Si-SCALE is an attempt to work through that hurdle in public – with industry partners alongside.
With TOPCon now the dominant cell architecture and heterojunction and back-contact designs jostling for position, perovskite-silicon tandems represent the most credible route to a meaningful efficiency uplift this decade – now with a neutral European facility geared explicitly to industrial transfer. (TF)

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