Abstract
Perovskite solar cells tend to degrade much faster under day-night cycling conditions. One key reason lies in the periodic strain in perovskite film under cycling mode due to its soft crystal lattice nature. Here, we propose a dynamic reversible crosslinking strategy by introducing disulfide-mediated cross-linkable additive of 2-methacryloyloxyethyl-thioctate. Combining with carbon-carbon double bond, 2-methacryloyloxyethyl-thioctate crosslinks at grain boundaries at high temperature through disulfide bond ring-opening, inhibiting perovskite expansion under day conditions. While at room temperature, 2-methacryloyloxyethyl-thioctate de-crosslinks with inverse ring-closing reaction, promoting perovskite recovery under night conditions. As a result, periodic film strain is alleviated in PSCs during day-night cycling aging. Resulting devices show high efficiency of 26.5% with good cycling stability, retaining 95.7% of initial efficiency after MPP tracking for 1,800 h under day-night cycling mode.
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Data supporting the findings of this study are publicly available at Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31047277) or upon request from the corresponding authors.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar (No. T2325011, J.F.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62274062 X.L., No. 62374058 J.F., No. 62104070 J.F.), Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan (No. 24DZ3001202, X.L.) and National Youth Top-notch Talent Support Program.
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J.F. and X.L. supervised the whole project. X.L. conceived the idea. W.L. designed and participated in all the experimental sections. B.F. and W.Z. helped the TPC and TPV characterization. Z.C. and W.H helped analyze the results and offer the promoted suggestions. C.H. and S.F. carried out the Ea measurements. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Li, W., Feng, B., Cui, Z. et al. Reversible crosslinking strategy for dynamic strain regulation in inverted perovskite solar cells. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70697-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70697-5
