Oxford researchers reported a flexible, multilayer perovskite solar-cell material just over one micron thick, with a certified laboratory efficiency above 27%. The “100 times thinner than a human hair” wording is a news-headline comparison; Oxford’s announcement instead said the material was almost 150 times thinner than a silicon wafer. The work points toward solar coatings, but it does not show that this specific material is commercially available.
What did the researchers develop?
The Oxford team developed a thin-film, multi-junction photovoltaic device made from stacked perovskite layers. Unlike a conventional silicon cell, which uses a single main light-absorbing layer, the stacked layers are designed to absorb different parts of the light spectrum. Oxford describes the material as flexible and suitable in principle for use as a coating.
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The announcement described the material as just over one micron thick—almost 150 times thinner than a silicon wafer. That is Oxford’s stated comparison. It is distinct from the “100 times thinner than a human hair” phrase used in the headline of a Futurism story published on 17 August 2024.
How efficient is the solar material?
Oxford’s 9 August 2024 announcement said the device had achieved more than 27% power-conversion efficiency, independently certified by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The Oxford University Research Archive’s record for the later Nature paper gives a certified result of 27.28% for a 1 cm² triple-junction device.
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That figure is a small-area research-device result, not a rating for a commercial solar panel or a measurement of how much electricity a coating would deliver on a building, vehicle, or phone. The sources do not report a controlled head-to-head test against commercial silicon panels.
Oxford researcher Dr Shuaifeng Hu described progress over five years, saying the team raised efficiency “from around 6% to over 27%.” This is the team’s account of its research progress, not a direct comparison of equivalent commercial products. Hu also said the approach could, in time, enable devices to exceed 45%; that is a projection, not an achieved efficiency.
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Could it be used on cars, buildings, or phones?
Oxford researchers presented broader surfaces as possible future applications. Dr Junke Wang named car and building roofs and the backs of mobile phones as examples. Oxford’s announcement also mentioned rucksacks. A thin, flexible coating could make it possible to generate power from surfaces that are not practical places for rigid, conventional panels.
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Those examples describe envisioned uses, not products demonstrated as ready for sale. The available sources do not establish that this exact coating can be purchased, installed at commercial scale, or used today to power a phone or car. Nor do they show that a thin cell automatically makes a complete solar installation cheaper or lighter: mounting, encapsulation, wiring, conversion electronics, and durability also matter.
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What is known about durability?
The Nature paper record reports that encapsulated triple-junction cells retained 80% of their initial efficiency after 860 hours of maximum-power-point tracking in ambient conditions. This is a defined laboratory stability result for encapsulated cells. It does not establish how many years a finished product would last outdoors, where exposure and operating conditions differ.
When was the research published?
The Futurism story carrying the headline was published on 17 August 2024 and said the findings had not yet been published. That description was accurate to the story’s timing, but the paper was subsequently published online in Nature on 23 December 2024. Its title is “Steering perovskite precursor solutions for multijunction photovoltaics.”
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How this differs from commercial perovskite products
Oxford Alumni has separately discussed Oxford PV, an Oxford spin-out commercializing perovskite photovoltaics. That is a distinct effort: the source does not say Oxford PV is commercializing this particular flexible, all-perovskite coating. The research result and commercial products should not be treated as interchangeable.
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