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The new study looks at a very small but key detail: how to "passivate" the material's surface, changing its properties in such a way that the perovskite no longer degrades so rapidly or loses efficiency.

The new study "addressed the ability to passivate those interfaces and elucidate the physics and science behind why this passivation works as well as it does," Bulovic says.

Such barriers are often insufficient to passivate the surfaces of semiconductors such as silicon, resulting in power losses that could overwhelm the beneficial effects of singlet fission.

To fully passivate Goce before re-entry, all engineers have to do is switch off its transmitter.

"We will push it out into a heliocentric orbit and passivate it," said Micha Schmidt, the Herschel spacecraft operations manager.