by Ingrid Fadelli, Tech Xplore
edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan
contributing writer
scientific editor
associate editor
TEM image of perovskite crystals coated with an amorphous layer. Credit: Nature Energy (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-025-01932-4.
Solar cells, devices that convert sunlight into electricity, are helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, promoting a shift toward renewable energy sources. Most solar cells used today are based on silicon, yet researchers have recently been exploring the potential of other photovoltaic materials, particularly perovskites.
Perovskites are a class of photovoltaic materials with strong light absorption. In practical devices, perovskite thin films are typically polycrystalline, meaning they consist of many small crystalline grains. As perovskites absorb sunlight so efficiently, a film thinner than ~1 μm can capture most of the incident solar radiation, whereas conventional crystalline silicon usually requires hundreds of micrometers of active material.
This combination of strong absorption and ultrathin active layers makes perovskite thin-film solar cells particularly well suited for lightweight, flexible, high-efficiency photovoltaic devices. Despite these many advantages, perovskites still face inherent challenges, such as achieving true mechanical flexibility, operational stability, and maintaining high efficiency at large areas simultaneously.
Researchers at Jinan University and Guangdong Mellow Energy Co. Ltd. in China recently devised a new strategy that could enable the development of flexible and light perovskite solar cells that maintain their performance over time, even after repeated bending.
Their approach, introduced in a paper published in Nature Energy, entails the use of passivation techniques and new protective molecules designed with the assistance of machine learning algorithms.
“Lightweight, flexible, and shock-resistant characteristics are intrinsic advantages of perovskite thin-film photovoltaics, which motivated us to begin research on flexible perovskite modules at a very early stage,” Dr. Shaohang Wu, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.
“However, as our work progressed toward real-world applications, we increasingly recognized fundamental challenges that are often overlooked at the laboratory scale. In particular, flexible perovskite devices require passivation strategies tailored specifically to flexible systems—these approaches should differ fundamentally from those used for rigid modules.”
Compared with crystalline silicon, perovskites are relatively “soft” materials, so under mechanical stress or pressure, their lattice can deform more readily. Such deformation can alter their optoelectronic properties and, in turn, reduce the efficiency of photovoltaic energy conversion.
“Many commonly used passivation strategies are designed to work for crystalline low-dimensional perovskites, thus they might be effective for rigid devices but are inherently less suitable for flexible systems,” said Dr. Wu.
“This led us to revisit mature flexible semiconductor technologies. In flexible thin-film transistors (TFTs), for example, amorphous silicon and amorphous IGZO are widely used, while amorphous silicon is also the standard passivation layer in silicon heterojunction (HJT) solar cells.”
Drawing from earlier research, Dr. Wu and his colleagues realized that amorphous materials (i.e., solids in which atoms or molecules are arranged in irregular patterns) could be better suited for the development of flexible solar cells. In fact, these materials’ electronic properties tend to remain largely unaltered when they are bent or deformed.
“The primary objective of our work was to leverage these materials to develop flexible perovskite photovoltaics that are not only efficient, but also mechanically robust and practically relevant,” explained Dr. Wu.
“Perovskite films are typically polycrystalline, consisting of many small grains on a flexible PET substrate. Compared with crystalline silicon, perovskites are relatively soft and more prone to stress-induced lattice deformation.
“When the device is bent, the mismatch in mechanical response can lead to grain-to-grain interaction and relative displacement, triggering microcracks, interfacial damage, or even partial delamination. These mechanical failures ultimately alter the optoelectronic properties and degrade device performance.”
To overcome this known limitation of flexible perovskite photovoltaics, the researchers added a soft amorphous material between individual perovskite grains. This layer acts as a mechanical buffer, preventing direct contact between rigid perovskite grains when a photovoltaic film is bent or deformed.
“This means that mechanical stress can be absorbed and redistributed, rather than being concentrated at grain boundaries,” said Dr. Wu.
“This amorphous layer must be carefully designed, as it needs to remain optoelectronically stable under compression and deformation, retaining its electronic and photovoltaic properties. By achieving this balance, we can significantly improve the mechanical robustness of flexible perovskite photovoltaics without sacrificing efficiency, which is essential for scalable and practical applications.”
To design the amorphous layer, the researchers relied on machine learning techniques—computational models that can uncover patterns in large datasets. The material they identified enabled flexible solar cells to reach a high efficiency of 24.52%. Notably, these cells retained 92.5% of their initial efficiency after 10,000 bending cycles.
Outdoor deployment of a 1.56-square-meter flexible perovskite solar module. Credit: Nature Energy (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-025-01932-4
More importantly, this strategy also enabled the realization of an unprecedented, square-meter-scale flexible perovskite module. The team fabricated a 1.56 m² module with a certified efficiency of 15%, marking a key milestone that moves flexible perovskite photovoltaics beyond small-scale demonstrations and toward genuine outdoor-ready, real-world deployment.
The new design and passivation strategy introduced by this team of researchers could contribute to the future commercialization of thin and flexible perovskite-based photovoltaics. Other energy engineers could soon draw inspiration from this strategy and set out to enhance the durability of perovskite solar cells using other amorphous and carefully engineered protective layers.
“In this work, we introduce a fundamentally different concept by constructing an amorphous composite passivation layer based on a host–guest molecular system interacting with Pb–I species,” said Dr. Wu.
“Through molecular design, we achieve effective energy-level modulation while maintaining an amorphous structure. This allows the passivation layer to remain electronically and structurally stable under repeated bending and prolonged operation.”
Flexible perovskite photovoltaics offer a highly promising application landscape, and the recent rise of space photovoltaics has further expanded the opportunities for this technology. This is because the space environment largely eliminates exposure to moisture and oxygen, two factors that perovskites are especially sensitive to.
To be deployed in space, solar cells should be both lightweight and high-performing. In contrast, on Earth, the central challenge is long-term outdoor stability, which depends heavily on encapsulation to mitigate the detrimental effects of water and oxygen ingress. This is especially critical because encapsulation can currently account for as much as 40% of the total cost of flexible modules.
“Our next studies will thus focus on two priorities: pushing the power-to-weight ratio even higher and reducing encapsulation costs to improve overall value and commercial viability,” added Dr. Wu.
“Flexible and rigid modules face fundamentally different packaging realities. For rigid modules, double-glass encapsulation is mature, reliable, and relatively low-cost. Flexible encapsulation, however, relies heavily on water-vapor barrier films, which are expensive and exhibit significant variability in performance, quality consistency, and pricing across suppliers.
“We aim to strengthen the intrinsic moisture and damp-heat resistance of flexible modules, while also developing robust, scalable, lower-cost encapsulation solutions that are suitable for real-world outdoor operation on the ground.”
Written for you by our author Ingrid Fadelli, edited by Sadie Harley, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan—this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You’ll get an ad-free account as a thank-you.
More information: Mingzhu He et al, Amorphous grain boundary engineering for scalable flexible perovskite photovoltaics with improved stability, Nature Energy (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-025-01932-4.
Journal information: Nature Energy
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An amorphous passivation strategy using machine learning-designed protective molecules enables flexible perovskite solar cells with high efficiency (24.52%) and durability, retaining 92.5% efficiency after 10,000 bending cycles. This approach also supports large-area modules (1.56 m2, 15% efficiency), advancing scalable, robust, and practical flexible photovoltaics.
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Amorphous passivation strategy creates efficient, durable and flexible perovskite solar cells
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