Perovskites are materials that are
increasingly popular for a wide range of applications because of their
remarkable electrical, optical, and photonic properties. Perovskite
materials have the potential to revolutionize the fields of solar
energy, sensing and detecting, photocatalysis, lasers, and others.
The properties of perovskites can be tuned for specific applications
by changing their chemical composition and internal architecture,
including the distribution and orientation of its crystal structure. At
the moment, the ability to influence these properties is massively
limited by manufacturing methods. A team of scientists at TU Dresden was
able to create perovskites with unique nano-architectures and crystal
properties from algae, taking advantage of years of evolution of these
single-celled organisms.
Taking Advantage of the Evolution
“Unicellular organisms have responded over hundreds of millions of
years to a wide range of environmental factors such as temperature, pH,
and mechanical stress. As a result, some of them evolved to produce
absolutely unique biomaterials that are exclusive to nature,” says Dr.
Igor Zlotnikov, research group leader at the B CUBE – Center for
Molecular Bioengineering who led the study. “Minerals formed by living
organisms often exhibit structural and crystallographic characteristics
that are far beyond the production capacities offered by current
synthetic methods.”
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