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Efficient near-infrared harvesting in perovskite–organic tandem solar cells

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Abstract

The broad bandgap tunability of both perovskites and organic semiconductors enables the development of perovskite–organic tandem solar cells with promising theoretical efficiency. However, the certified efficiencies of reported perovskite–organic tandem solar cells remain lower than those of single-junction perovskite solar cells, primarily because of insufficient near-infrared photocurrent in narrow-bandgap organic subcells1,2,3. Here we design and synthesize an asymmetric non-fullerene acceptor (NFA), P2EH-1V, featuring a unilateral conjugated π-bridge to reduce the optical bandgap to 1.27 eV while maintaining ideal exciton dissociation and nanomorphology. Transient absorption spectroscopy confirms efficient hole transfer from P2EH-1V to the donor PM6. Devices based on P2EH-1V exhibit reduced non-radiative voltage losses of 0.20 eV without compromising charge-generation efficiency. We achieve a 17.9% efficiency for the organic bottom cell, with a high short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 28.60 mA cm−2. Furthermore, we minimize interface recombination losses, enabling the perovskite top cell to achieve an impressive open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.37 V and a fill factor (FF) of 85.5%. These advancements result in perovskite–organic tandem solar cells achieving a record efficiency of 26.7% (certified at 26.4%) over an aperture area greater than 1 cm2.

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Fig. 1: NFA design and device performance.
Fig. 2: Charge dynamics and energy-loss analysis.
Fig. 3: Single-junction WBG perovskite solar cells.
Fig. 4: Perovskite–organic tandem cells with P2EH-1V and Br-Ph-4PACz.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

Y.H. acknowledges the support from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) under its MTC Individual Research Grants (232K2087). The authors of this paper are affiliated with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), a research institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). SERIS is supported by the NUS, the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), the Energy Market Authority of Singapore (EMA) and the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). P.M.-B. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2089/1 – 390776260 (e-conversion) and through TUM.solar in the context of the Bavarian Collaborative Research Project Solar Technologies Go Hybrid (SolTech). The simulation works for this article were entirely performed on resources of the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore (https://www.nscc.sg). Part of this work was carried out at PETRA III and we would like to thank J. Zhang, A. Buyan-Arivjikh, A. Chumakov and M. Schwartzkopf for their assistance with the measurements at the P03 beamline.

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Contributions

Z.J. and Y.H. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. Y.H. supervised the project. Z.J. synthesized and characterized the acceptors. Z.J. and X.G. fabricated and characterized the tandem cells. X.G. conducted device characterizations of the WBG perovskite solar cells. X.Y. synthesized the SAM material. M.S. and X.D. measured and analysed the energy loss of the organic solar cells. J.Q. and X.H. measured and analysed transient absorption spectroscopy. R.G., X. Jiang, S.V.R., P.M.-B. and C.-H.K. performed GIWAXS measurements and analysed the data. X.W. conducted contact-angle measurements. Y.W. completed the cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy imaging. Z.D. completed the KPFM and AFM imaging. Z.S. contributed to density functional theory simulations. Q.Z., Z.W., S.L. and L.K.L. participated in the device fabrication and characterizations for the single-junction solar cells. J.H. completed the transmission electron microscopy imaging. X. Jia assisted with VOC loss analysis. J.C. and H.L. conducted ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. N.L. conducted transient photovoltage measurements. Z.J. and Y.H. analysed the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yi Hou.

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Jia, Z., Guo, X., Yin, X. et al. Efficient near-infrared harvesting in perovskite–organic tandem solar cells. Nature 643, 104–110 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09181-x

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