Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Perovskite photovoltaics

Stability beyond lead

Nature Energy volume 8, pages 222–223 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

The limited durability of perovskite photovoltaics has held back the technology. New research unveils a class of low-dimensionality perovskites based on metals such as zinc, cobalt or copper that protects the 3D perovskite solar absorber from degradation while affording high efficiency.

Despite the rapid development of perovskite photovoltaics, researchers in the field are still conservative about whether the technology can be the next generation of solar panels in the market, mainly because of their poor operational stability. In particular, degradation can occur at the interface between the perovskite photo-absorber and the contact layers, triggered by the presence of defects. To prevent interfacial degradation, an effective strategy is to passivate the defects at the surface of the 3D perovskite photo-absorber with low-dimensional perovskites. Furthermore, these low-dimensional perovskites can prevent the ingression of moisture into the photo-absorber, which is among the main causes for degradation. Promising operational lifetimes have been demonstrated: cells can maintain over 90% of the initial efficiency after 1,000 hours of operation1,2,3,4. The low-dimensional perovskite capping layers are commonly formed by exchanging the organic cation of the 3D perovskite with a larger one. With this approach, only the organic cation can be engineered: the resulting low-dimensional perovskite will have a different organic cation but the same metal (typically lead) and halide as the 3D perovskite. This limitation to the composition design of the conventional approach makes it difficult to obtain low-dimensional perovskites with ideal energy level alignment and crystalline orientation to facilitate the charge conduction. As a consequence, only a limited number of lead-based low-dimensional perovskites have enabled high efficiency while protecting the 3D perovskite surface from degradation.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Perovskite solar cells with zinc-based perovskite capping layers.

References

  1. Grancini, G. et al. Nat. Commun. 8, 15684 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Jang, Y.-W. et al. Nat. Energy 6, 63–71 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sidhik, S. et al. Science 377, 1425–1430 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zhang, F. et al. Science 375, 71–76 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ye, S. et al. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01189-1 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Saliba, M. et al. Science 354, 206–209 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Lei, Y. et al. Nature 608, 317–323 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Meng, W. et al. Joule 6, 458–475 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA

    Wanyi Nie

Authors
  1. Wanyi Nie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wanyi Nie.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nie, W. Stability beyond lead. Nat Energy 8, 222–223 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01203-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01203-0

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing