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Perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells reach 32.89% certified efficiency with peak-selective passivation strategy

A team of Chinese scientists has developed a new passivation strategy that significantly improves both the efficiency and operational stability of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The study has been published in the journal Matter on May 21.

Perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells combine a top perovskite layer, which efficiently converts sunlight into electricity, with a silicon bottom substrate. These solar cells hold great potential for lightweight, high-efficiency applications in the photovoltaic field, with the current world efficiency record reaching 35.0%.

However, the pyramid-textured surface of industrial silicon substrates makes it difficult to deposit a uniform perovskite top layer, which often leads to localized electrical leakage and thus limits the commercial prospects of these tandem cells.

Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies Could Unlock Secrets of the Early Universe

Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies are among the smallest known galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Astronomers have long viewed them as ancient remnants from the early cosmos. Now, researchers at the Oskar Klein Centre and the LYRA collaboration have used a powerful new set of simulations to show that these dim galaxies may reveal how conditions in the young Universe shaped which galaxies were able to grow and which never formed stars at all.

The study, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), was led by Azadeh Fattahi, Associate Professor at the Oskar Klein Centre (OKC), along with collaborators from Durham University and the University of Hawaii.

She explains the scale of the project: “In this work we presented a brand-new suite of cosmological simulations focused on the faintest galaxies in the Universe, with an unprecedented resolution. These are by far the largest sample of such galaxies ever simulated at these resolutions.”

Apple blocked over $11 billion in App Store fraud in 6 years

Apple revealed that it blocked over $11 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions over the last six years, more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2025 alone.

In a Wednesday press release, the tech giant said it rejected over 2 million problematic app submissions last year and blocked more than 1.1 billion fraudulent account creations.

Apple also terminated 193,000 developer accounts due to fraud concerns, rejected more than 138,000 developer enrollments, and deactivated an additional 40.4 million customer accounts suspected of fraud and abuse.

Google accidentally exposed details of unfixed Chromium flaw

Google has accidentally leaked details about an unfixed issue in Chromium that keeps JavaScript running in the background even when the browser is closed, allowing remote code execution on the device.

The flaw was reported by security researcher Lyra Rebane and acknowledged as valid in December 2022, as per the thread on Chromium Issue Tracker.

An attacker could exploit the problem to create a malicious webpage with a Service Worker, such as a download task, that never terminates. Rebane says that this could allow an attacker to execute JavaScript code on the visitors’ devices.

9-Year-Old Linux Kernel Flaw Enables Root Command Execution on Major Distros

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a vulnerability in the Linux kernel that remained undetected for nine years.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026–46333 (CVSS score: 5.5), is a case of improper privilege management that could permit an unprivileged local user to disclose sensitive files and execute arbitrary commands as root on default installations of several major distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. It’s also codenamed ssh-keysign-pwn.

According to Qualys, which discovered the flaw, the problem is rooted in the kernel’s __ptrace_may_access function and was introduced in November 2016.

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