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Shuaifeng Hu is in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
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Henry J. Snaith is in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
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Rooftop solar panels, which are generally made of crystalline silicon, can convert around 25% of the energy from sunlight into electricity. Metal halide perovskites, a class of semiconductors, have been proposed as next-generation solar-cell materials, with the potential to achieve efficiencies that are not possible with only silicon. Using perovskites to build ‘tandem’ solar cells, in which different photoactive materials are layered on top of each other, is a particularly promising approach. However, unwanted heat generated by crystal defects in the perovskite bulk and at the interfaces through which electric charge is extracted limits the power-conversion efficiency of these devices. Writing in Nature, Lin et al.¹ report tandem perovskite solar cells that use dipolar molecules called surfactants on one of the perovskite surfaces to reduce interfacial energy loss. The resulting solar cells convert more than 30% of incident solar energy into electrical energy, surpassing the theoretical limit for silicon solar cells.
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Nature 648, 544-546 (2025)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03806-x
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H.J.S. Is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of Oxford PV, a company in the United Kingdom that develops perovskite-based solar technology.
Read the paper: All-perovskite tandem solar cells with dipolar passivation
Light detectors made from perovskite crystals see in full colour
High-performance perovskite–organic tandem solar cells
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Read the paper: All-perovskite tandem solar cells with dipolar passivation
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