Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1174596
28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2019 Matties: When you see a smaller average size order, is that the indicator that it's trending down? Beeson: Yes, it is for us, as this highlights a change in the supply chain. We show those charts frequently, and we're glad to share those related to what we see in the orientation of how we interpret that. Matties: Based on what you're doing, those numbers have a significant impact on telling the future. Beeson: With the user community going up, and then we look at the retention and fre- quency of purchases, etc., we feel very opti- mistic about the world of innovation and de- sign. There are more and more applications every single day. News that makes headlines is typically negative, but we're preparing for an upside. The business will have volatilities, and sometimes we'll follow that to a small degree, but we don't look at the 90-day or even one-year horizon; we look at it much longer. Matties: We're at an age of innovation right now that we've never seen before. Beeson: Absolutely. We had a great conver- sation with an organization the other day about autonomous mobile robots and what that looks like moving forward. As I said ear- lier, they have one aspect of the solution, but they don't have a total solution. How can I align you with a metal fabricator company? How can I align you with a software compa - ny? How can I align with you, and could you be the starter kit? It's all related to design. That market is going to be significant in a lot of different business segments. Sometimes, that's at the front end, and it's not always proven; other times, maybe it's hyped to a greater extent than what real - ity plays out, but we participate in the innova- tion side design. We don't have to guess who the next Tier 1 company is going to be; as a re- sult, we're more in the front end of the process. When our customers get into the high produc- tion segment, that's not the orientation of what we're going to serve in our business model. Matties: Chris, it has been great spending time with you and hearing your insights. I greatly appreciate it. Beeson: You're welcome. I've enjoyed it too. Thanks again. DESIGN007 Solar cells that rely on perovskites to harvest sunlight are bound to gain in energy conversion efficiency thanks to an atomic-level understanding of the structure-proper- ty relationship of these photovoltaic materials. Researchers from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technol- ogy (KAUST) Solar Center monitored the impact of composi- tional changes on the structural organization and photovol- taic properties of perovskite thin films in situ. Hybrid perovskites have emerged as key components in low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells because they are cheaper and eas- ier to process than traditional sili- con-based solar cell materials. So- lar cell performance and stability depend on the morphology of the thin films, especially their ability to crystallize in the so- called photoactive α-phase. Perovskites containing lead tend to combine various halides, such as the anionic forms of bromine and iodine, with mixtures of methylammonium, formamidinium, cesium, and other cations. These have led to record conversion efficiencies and thermal stabilities compared with their single-halide, single-cation analogs. The team tracked the films' structural evolution during the spin-coating deposition process using an in situ X-ray scattering technique. The team is working on transferring this knowl - edge to other deposition technolo- gies to progress toward market- ready perovskite solar cells. (Source: KAUST) Tiny Tweaks for Big Wins in Solar Cells