What can't perovskite do?

 

You may have read the title of this post and asked yourself, "What is perovskite?"

Good question!  Here's an answer:

Everything you ever wanted to know about perovskite, Earth's most abundant type of mineral—that we almost never see  (YouTube video)

This is from "Perovskites for Clean Energy":

"A perovskite is a material that has the same crystal structure as the mineral calcium titanium oxide, the first-discovered perovskite crystal. Generally, perovskite compounds have a chemical formula ABX3, where ‘A’ and ‘B’ represent cations and X is an anion that bonds to both. A large number of different elements can be combined together to form perovskite structures. Using this compositional flexibility, scientists can design perovskite crystals to have a wide variety of physical, optical, and electrical characteristics. Perovskite crystals are found today in ultrasound machines, memory chips, and now – solar cells."

The aforementioned crystal structure:

Now, you are invited to do all of the research you want on perovskites, and all that they can do. This post is about this article:

First “Perovskite Camera” Can See Inside the Human Body
A new detector promises to lower the cost and increase the quality of nuclear medicine.

(I'll give you the introduction.)

"Physicians rely on nuclear medicine scans, like SPECT scans, to watch the heart pump, track blood flow and detect diseases hidden deep inside the body. But today’s scanners depend on expensive detectors that are difficult to make.

Now, scientists led by Northwestern University and Soochow University in China have built the first perovskite-based detector that can capture individual gamma rays for SPECT imaging with record-breaking precision. The new tool could make common types of nuclear medicine imaging sharper, faster, cheaper and safer.

For patients, that could mean shorter scan times, clearer results and lower doses of radiation."

Enjoy the rest.

Reference: Shen N, He X, Gao T, et al. Single photon γ-ray imaging with high energy and spatial resolution perovskite semiconductor for nuclear medicine. Nature Communications 2025;16(1):8113. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63400-7.