Solar energy technology has taken another major step forward as researchers develop a new way to make perovskite solar cells more efficient and stable.
A team from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology in China, working with international partners, has created a tiny engineered layer inside the cells that dramatically improves their performance.
Their work, published in Nature Energy, achieved an efficiency of 26.19 percent, placing it among the highest ever reported for this type of solar cell.
Perovskite solar cells have attracted global attention because they are cheaper and easier to produce than traditional silicon panels while offering the potential for very high efficiency.
However, their progress has been slowed by a major problem: tiny defects in the material that reduce performance and cause the cells to degrade over time.
These defects often form on the surfaces where different layers of the cell meet, especially at the hidden “buried” interface that is difficult to access and improve.
To solve this issue, the researchers designed a method to form an ultra-thin two-dimensional layer of perovskite material exactly at that buried interface.
This special layer acts like a protective and organizing sheet, helping the main three-dimensional perovskite layer above it grow with fewer imperfections.
As a result, the number of defects at the interface dropped by more than 90 percent.
The team achieved this by modifying tiny particles of tin dioxide, a material commonly used in solar cells to transport electrons.
They attached two chemical compounds to the particle surface, allowing a controlled reaction to occur only during the heating stage of solar cell fabrication. This reaction triggered the formation of the two-dimensional layer precisely where it was needed, without affecting the rest of the material.
Solar cells built using this technique showed impressive results. Small test devices reached an efficiency of 26.19 percent in converting sunlight into electricity. Larger modules also performed strongly, achieving efficiencies above 22 percent even at sizes closer to those needed for real-world applications.
These results demonstrate that the method works not only in laboratory samples but also in larger devices.
Equally important, the new design improves the stability of perovskite solar cells, which has been a major obstacle to commercialization. By reducing defects and strengthening the interface between layers, the cells are expected to last longer under real operating conditions.
Researchers say the process could be scaled up for industrial production because it fits into existing manufacturing methods. This means the technology could move from the laboratory to factories more easily than many previous experimental approaches.
Perovskite solar cells are widely seen as a key part of the future of renewable energy because they could dramatically lower the cost of solar power while increasing efficiency. This latest breakthrough brings that vision closer to reality, suggesting that next-generation solar panels may soon deliver more energy at lower cost, helping accelerate the global transition to clean electricity.
