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Nature Energy volume 10, pages 1074–1083 (2025)
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Surface defect passivation is crucial for improving the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells. However, its reproducibility and universal applicability have not been fully explored, limiting large-scale production. Here we introduce a passivation strategy based on fluorinated isopropanol for full passivation of surface defects with only a thin layer of low-dimensional perovskite, which does not interfere with charge transport. Fluorinated isopropanol reduces the reactivity of passivator molecules with the perovskite and allows the use of high passivator concentrations, ensuring complete defect passivation. A subsequent rinse with a solvent mixture of fluorinated isopropanol and isopropanol removes the excess passivator molecule. We demonstrate that the strategy has a broad processing window with high tolerance for deviations to the passivator concentration and is applicable to various device architectures, perovskite compositions and device areas. This method results in high power conversion efficiencies and has the potential to improve scalability and production yields in industrial manufacturing.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available within the Article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.
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We thank C. Mu and T. Zhou from Instrumentation and Service Center for Physical Sciences and X. Shi and X. Lu from Instrumentation and Service Center for Molecular Sciences at Westlake University for the assistance in the characterizations and C. Yao at Fudan University for the assistance in the DFT calculation. Funding: R.W. acknowledges a grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 62474143). J.X. and R.W. acknowledge grant (LD24E020001) from Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China. J.X. acknowledges a grant from the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (LR24F040001) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 62274146). R.W. acknowledges the support of Key R&D Program of Zhejiang (2024SSYS0061). Z.C. acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (62204220).
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou, China
Sisi Wang, Weizhong Tian, Zhendong Cheng, Wei Fan, Jingjing Zhou & Rui Wang
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Weizhong Tian, Wei Fan, Jingjing Zhou & Jingjing Xue
Key Laboratory of Precise Synthesis of Functional Molecules of Zhejiang Province, School of Science, Instrumentation and Service Center for Molecular Sciences, Westlake University, Hangzhou, China
Xiaohuo Shi & Danyu Gu
Shangyu Institute of Semiconductor Materials, Shaoxing, China
Jingjing Xue
Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Intelligent Low-Carbon Biosynthesis, Westlake University, Hangzhou, China
Rui Wang
Division of Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis at Westlake University, Zhejiang Baima Lake Laboratory Co. Ltd, Hangzhou, China
Rui Wang
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S.W. conceived the idea, did the fabrication of perovskite films and devices, did the data analysis and wrote the paper under the supervision of R.W. and J.X. W.T. assisted with the device fabrication of Cs0.05MA0.15FA0.8PbI2.25Br0.75 perovskite. W.F. synthesized FAPbBr3 and MAPbBr3 crystal. X.S. performed the NMR measurements and data analysis. D.G. performed the ssNMR measurements. J.Z. provided helpful suggestions on the optimization of SAMs. R.W. and J.X. reviewed and edited the paper. Z.C. performed the photoluminescence quantum yield measurements. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.
Correspondence to Jingjing Xue or Rui Wang.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Energy thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Figs. 1–34, Tables 1–3 and Notes 1 and 2.
Saturated passivation via immersion method (immersion-based SP strategy).
The individual data behind the full PV parameters in the box-and-whisker plots for Supplementary Figs. 15, 16, 18 and 19.
The individual data behind the full PV parameters in the histograms and box-and-whisker plots for Figs. 3c,d,j and 4a–g,i.
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Wang, S., Tian, W., Cheng, Z. et al. Fluorinated isopropanol for improved defect passivation and reproducibility in perovskite solar cells. Nat Energy 10, 1074–1083 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-025-01791-z
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