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Inverted organic solar cells with an in situ-derived SiOxNy passivation layer and power conversion efficiency exceeding 18%

Nature Photonics volume 19, pages 195–203 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Inverted organic solar cells are attractive for commercialization. However, their power conversion efficiency (PCE) still lags their conventional architecture counterpart. Here we propose a new approach to enhance the performance and stability of structure-inverted non-fullerene organic solar cells. We use an in situ-derived inorganic SiOxNy passivation layer, formed by curing a solution-deposited perhydropolysilazane thin film in ambient atmosphere on top of the commonly used ZnO transport layer. Oxygen vacancies and dangling bonds of ZnO create a doped region in the photoactive layer, leading to losses in photocurrent due to enhanced recombination of photogenerated holes within this region. The optimized SiOxNy interlayer effectively passivates the ZnO surface defects by forming Zn–O–Si bonds, leading to a vanishing doped region. At the same time, SiOxNy induces a preferential accumulation of the non-fullerene acceptor near the electron contact, which also favours charge extraction. The combination of both effects leads to increased photocurrent density and PCE, with certified PCE values of 18.49% and 18.06% for cells with active areas of 5.77 mm2 and 100.17 mm2, respectively, using PM6:L8-BO as the photoactive layer. Importantly, cells containing inorganic SiOxNy exhibit an estimated T80 lifetime of 24,700 h (where T80 is the time it takes for the PCE to drop to 80% of its initial value) under white light illumination, corresponding to an operational lifespan exceeding 16 years. The results underscore the potential of our approach for practical applications of highly efficient and stable inverted organic solar cells.

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Fig. 1: Realization of in situ-derived SiOxNy for inverted OSCs through solution deposition of PHPS and subsequent air curing.
Fig. 2: Interactions between ZnO, SiOxNy and Y6.
Fig. 3: Performance of inverted OSCs with a SiOxNy-passivated ETL.
Fig. 4: Electronic properties of the SiOxNy OSCs.

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All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in this paper are present in the Article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China grant nos. 22075315 (C.-Q.M.) and 22135001 (Q.L.) and Chinese Academy of Sciences grant no. YJKYYQ20180029 (C.-Q.M.). R.Ö. and C.-Q.M. would like to thank the Suzhou Science and Technology Bureau grant no. SWY2022004. Research Council of Finland is acknowledged through project no. 357196 (O.J.S.) and project no. 359833 (R.Ö.). We are grateful for technical support from the Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation (Nano-X), Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (A2107).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. i-Lab & Printable Electronics Research Center, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Bowen Liu, Jian Qin, Na Wu, Xuelai Yu, Jin Fang, Wusong Zha, Qun Luo, Ronald Österbacka & Chang-Qi Ma

  2. School of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China

    Bowen Liu, Jian Qin, Xuelai Yu, Wusong Zha, Qun Luo & Chang-Qi Ma

  3. College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, People’s Republic of China

    Bowen Liu

  4. Physics and Center for Functional Materials, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Oskar J. Sandberg, Sebastian Wilken & Ronald Österbacka

  5. College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Yueying Liu & Hongwei Tan

  6. Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation (Nano-X), Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiyun Li & Rong Huang

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Contributions

B.L. and C.-Q.M. conceived the idea and C.-Q.M. supervised the research. B.L. performed the device fabrication and characterization of OSCs with active areas of 5.77 mm2 and 4 cm2. B.L., J.Q., X.Y., W.Z. and N.W. performed the fabrication and characterization of cells with an active area of 100.17 mm2. Y.L. and H.T. performed the DFT calculations. B.L. performed the TEM and AFM characterization and stability measurements of OSCs. J.F. performed the grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering characterization. B.L. and Z.L. performed the XPS and UPS characterizations. B.L. performed the inverse photoemission spectroscopy measurement of the SiOxNy film. B.L. and R.H. performed the TOF-SIMS characterization. O.J.S. performed and analysed drift–diffusion simulations. Q.L., C.-Q.M. and R.Ö. coordinated this work. B.L. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. S.W., R.Ö., O.J.S. and C.-Q.M. revised and finalized the manuscript. All the authors commented and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qun Luo, Ronald Österbacka or Chang-Qi Ma.

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Supplementary Notes 1–12, Figs. 1–42 and Tables 1–14.

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Liu, B., Sandberg, O.J., Qin, J. et al. Inverted organic solar cells with an in situ-derived SiOxNy passivation layer and power conversion efficiency exceeding 18%. Nat. Photon. 19, 195–203 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01574-0

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