Toughened self-assembled monolayers for durable perovskite solar cells

Wenlin Jiang, Geping Qu, Xiaofeng Huang, Xia Chen, Linyuan Chi, Tonghui Wang, Chun-To Wong, Francis R. Lin, Chunlei Yang, Qing Jiang (), Shengfan Wu (), Jie Zhang () and Alex K.-Y. Jen ()
Additional contact information
Wenlin Jiang: Kowloon
Geping Qu: Kowloon
Xiaofeng Huang: Kowloon
Xia Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Linyuan Chi: Jilin University
Tonghui Wang: Jilin University
Chun-To Wong: Kowloon
Francis R. Lin: Kowloon
Chunlei Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qing Jiang: Jilin University
Shengfan Wu: Tuen Mun
Jie Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Alex K.-Y. Jen: Kowloon

Nature, 2025, vol. 646, issue 8083, 95-101

Abstract: Abstract Hole-selective self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)1,2 have played a key role in driving the certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) of inverted perovskite solar cells3–5 to 26.7% (ref. 6). However, their instability often compromises the operational performance of devices, strongly hindering their practical applications7,8. Here we employ a cross-linkable co-SAM to enhance the conformational stability of hole-selective SAMs against external stresses, while suppressing the formation of defects and voids in SAM during self-assembly. The azide-containing SAM can be thermally activated to form a cross-linked and densely assembled co-SAM with a thermally stable conformation and preferred orientation. This effectively minimizes substrate surface exposure caused by wiggling of loose SAMs under thermal stress, preventing perovskite decomposition. This enables a certified PCE of 26.92% to be achieved for the best-performing cell, which also possesses excellent thermal stability with negligible decay under maximum-power-point tracking at 85 °C for 1,000 h. It also retains >98% of initial PCE after 700 repetitive thermal cycles between −40 °C and 85 °C, representing the state of the art of the field. This work offers an in-depth understanding of SAM degradation mechanisms to guide the design of a more robust buried interface for SAM-based devices adopting high-roughness substrates to realize highly efficient and durable perovskite solar cells.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09509-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:646:y:2025:i:8083:d:10.1038_s41586-025-09509-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09509-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().