On October 26-28th, Moscow Autumn Perovskite Photovoltaics International Conference (MAPPIC-2020) was held at the Moscow State University for the second time. The conference was organized by the Laboratory of New Materials for Solar Energetics on the Faculty of Materials Science and the Faculty of Chemistry with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-73-30022).

Due to the difficult global epidemiological situation, it was decided to hold the conference online, which, however, did not stop foreign participants from taking part. In total, over 250 scientists from the leading scientific centers of 30 countries took part in the conference as speakers and listeners.

On the 9th of April, the Faculty of Materials Science launched a new educational project – online lecture series course. Twice a week one of famous scientists from the world’s leading universities will tell about the most advanced areas of state-of-the-art materials science.

The first lecture on “The order and how we understand it” was given by Alexei Bosak – the eminent graduate of the Faculty of Materials Science, now a leading researcher of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble (France). This was followed by an online lecture on “Radiation Detection” by Head of the Department of Chemistry and Radiochemistry Department of MSU, prof. S.N. Kalmykov.

So far, 8 invited lectures have taken place from the following scientists: prof. Keith Stevenson (University of Texas in Austin, USA; Scoltech, Russia) "Advanced materials for energy storage: challenges and opportunities"; Ivan Turkevych (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) “Solar energy and photocatalytic water splitting”, prof. Aron Walsh (Imperial College London, UK) “New Adventures in Materials Modeling”, prof. Yury Gogotsi (Drexel University, USA) “The Rise of MXenes”, Wolfgang Tress (University of Munich, Germany) “Device physics of perovskite solar cells”, prof. Henk Bolink (University of Valencia, Spain) “Vacuum deposition techniques for modern photovoltaics”.

The MSU Gymnasium students participate in the “Flexible electronics” section, where they had presented Grätzel (dye-sensitized) and perovskite-type solar cells based on a flexible substrate. The fabrication of the devices was carried out in the NMSE Lab, whereas during the competition, the team had to improve the devices so that they would meet all the jury requirements.

The first international conference on perovskite photovoltaics (Moscow Autumn Perovskite Photovoltaics International Conference) - “MAPPIC-2019”, was organized by the Laboratory of New Materials for Solar Energetics on the Faculty of Materials Science together with the Department of Chemistry in Moscow State University with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-73-30022) and JSC Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station.

The conference was held at the Department of Chemistry in Moscow State University on October 14-15, 2019, and it was attended by more than 60 participants, including members of leading educational and academic centers of Russia, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Kazakhstan and China, in particular those from Moscow State University, National University of Science and Technology MISiS, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Scientific and Technical Center for Thin-Film Technologies in Power Engineering, Japan National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technologies (AIST), Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), National University of Qing Hua (NTHU), ITMO University, St. Petersburg State University, Eurasian University named after L.N. Gumileva and others.

On October 11, popular science lectures were held in fifty Moscow schools within the framework of a new project held by the All-Russian Science Festival “NAUKA 0+”. The head of the laboratory, Alexey Tarasov and four laboratory members — Aleksei Grishko, Natalia Shlenskaya, Andrey Petrov and Sergey Fateev delivered lectures on solar energetics and talked about the life of young scientists in the field of materials science today. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Periodic Law of chemical elements by Dmitri Mendeleev and the main theme of the Science Festival is dedicated to this anniversary. The event was held with the support of the Department of Education and Science of Moscow city and the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-73-30022).

Dr. Alexey Tarasov, Head of the Laboratory of New Materials for Solar Energetics, and Prof. Eugene Goodilin, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Materials Science at Moscow State University and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, became laureates of the Reaxys Award Russia 2019 in the nomination “For a significant contribution to the development of the most actively developing scientific topics in the world”. The award ceremony took place on September 11, 2019 in St. Petersburg at the XXI Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry. The prize was established by Mendeleev Russian Chemical Society together with the «Elsevier» company and the nominees were chosen using the SciVal analytical module among 7 clusters of scientific topics actively developing in the field of chemistry.

The XXI Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry is held from September 9th to 13th and is one of the key events of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. The congress was timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Dmitri Mendeleev’s discovery of the Periodic Law of Chemical Elements.

The Bachelor's program in “Chemistry, Physics and Mechanics of Materials” has been implemented in 2017 by Moscow State University at the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University under the guidance of the Dean of the Faculty of Materials Science, academician K.A. Solntsev. This year, the first students of the program completed their second-year bachelor studies with a successful defense of the coursework in inorganic chemistry, which was held on July 13, 2019.

While doing the coursework, the students have had the first experience of performing scientific research and solving serious scientific problems. The discussion with the supervisors was held completely in Russian, which the students had managed to learn during three previous semesters of studying at the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. Carrying out the coursework, the students learned about the current trends in perovskite photovoltaics and studied the basics of various characterization methods, such as X-ray diffraction, diffuse reflection spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and scanning electron microscopy. The students have successfully applied the gained knowledge to carry out the assigned tasks: the synthesis of perovskite single crystals, the replacement of ions in hybrid perovskites via the ion-exchange method, the study of the crystallization of various perovskite compositions from aprotic solvents and the study of their environmental stability.

Based on the results of the thesis defense, the faculty commission has rated the work of four students as “excellent”; one student received a “good” mark. Course supervisors on perovskite photovoltaics, junior researcher Andrey Petrov and head of the laboratory Dr. Alexey Tarasov pointed out the extraordinary commitment and diligence of the students in carrying out scientific research and wished them further success in science.

In 2019, the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Periodic law of chemical elements by D.I.Mendeleev, and the year is offilically declared by UNESCO as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Throughout the year, activities dedicated to this event will take place all over the world.

On January 29, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and a week later, on February 6, at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow the opening ceremony of the year was held with the participation of the Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education M.M. Kotyukov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Academician A.M. Sergeev, Rector of Moscow State University Academician V.A. Sadovnichy and the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev. Students and employees of the Laboratory of New Materials for Solar Energetics organized an interactive experimental exhibition “Laboratory” dedicated to the application of various chemical elements in chemistry and materials science.

Head of the laboratory Alexey Tarasov, jr. researcher Alexey Grishko and jr. researcher Andrey Petrov participated in the largest international conference on perovskite photovoltaics – PSCO-2018 (Lausanne, Switzerland), which took place from October 30^th to November 2^nd, where they presented some recent results of the laboratory in oral and two poster presentations.

Many conference participants are well acquainted with the laboratory’s publications on reactive polyiodide melts and perovskite adducts with aprotic solvents and the new data presented drew great attention. Junior researcher Aleksei Grishko was awarded a diploma of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A RSC for the best poster.

Students of the laboratory showed outstanding results at the All-Russian conference Lomonosov-2018 in the section "Fundamental Materials Science":

Bachelor students:
Andrei Tutantsev (3^rd year bachelor student) - II degree diploma
Nikita Stepanov (2^nd year) - III degree diploma
Alexander Sudakov (1^st year) - III degree diploma

Master and PhD Students:
Aleksei Grishko (1^st year PhD student) - I degree diploma
Yulia Sokolova (2^nd year master student) - II degree diploma
Natalia Shlenskaya (2^nd year PhD student) - II degree diploma
Elena Zharyonova (1^st year master student) - III degree diploma
Pavel Rudnev (1^st year master student) - III degree diploma

In addition, Yulia Sokolova was awarded the 1^st degree diploma in the competition of student works at the VIII Conference of Young Scientists on General and Inorganic Chemistry, conducted during the same days by S.N. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences. Congratulations!

On November 12, an international forum dedicated to renewable energy sources 'COP23 Renewable Energy Day' took place in Bonn, held by the International Renewable Energy Agency - IRENA.

Among the invited speakers of the forum the academic community of Russia was presented the Laboratory of new materials for solar energy. Participants of the forum with great interest took the report on the prospects of perovskite solar energy and breakthrough work in this area conducted at Moscow State University.

On 21^st of July a research project on perovskite solar cells was presented to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. At the stand, talented schoolchildren presented a hand-made working prototype of a perovskite solar cell developed in the framework of their project.