Perovskite for Brilliant Future of Solar Cells

Perovskite is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (chemical formula CaTiO3). Its name is also applied to class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as CaTiO3, known as the perovskite structure, which has a general chemical formula A2+B4+(X2-)3. Many different cations can be embedded in this structure, allo-wing the development of diverse engineered materials. The mineral was discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia by Gustav Rose in 1839 and is named after Russian mineralogist Lev Perovskite (1792-1856. Perovskite's notable crystal structure was first described by Victor Goldschmidt in 1926 in his work on tolerance factors. The crystal structure was later published in 1945 from X-ray diffraction data on barium titanate by Helen Dick Megaw.