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Photostable donor–acceptor interface for minimizing energy loss in inverted perovskite solar cells

Nature Photonics volume 20, pages 287–295 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) play an important role in improving the performance of inverted perovskite solar cells. However, loose molecular packing, non-uniform coverage, weak affinity with the solvents of perovskite precursors, and energy-level mismatch cause energy losses at the buried interface. Here we develop a light-stable donor–acceptor interface formed by an asymmetric carbazole-based SAM, namely, BrAs, and N-hydroxyethyl phthalimide (PIE). The single-side electron-withdrawing bromine in BrAs maintains wettability and reduces the valence band offset to 0.09 eV. Additionally, the asymmetric dipole in BrAs reorients the carbazole units and strengthens short-range Coulomb interactions, resulting in close packing and uniform coverage of SAMs for efficient and uniform carrier transport. The donor–acceptor interface also promotes ultrafast energy transfer, which enhances the photostability of BrAs and improves thermal carrier extraction by 19%, further minimizing energy losses. In particular, the lattice-matching PIE molecules stabilize the (100) out-of-plane orientation of the perovskite by interlocking [PbI6]4⁻ octahedra, which releases compressive stress and stabilizes the buried interface. As a result, BrAs–PIE devices achieve a power conversion efficiency of 27.28% (certified, 27.19%) and retain over 95% of the initial efficiency after 1,500 h of illumination under the ISOS-L-2 protocol.

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Fig. 1: Wettability and energy level of SAMs.
Fig. 2: Stacking of self-assembled molecules.
Fig. 3: Photostable D–A system and reduced hot carrier energy loss.
Fig. 4: Effect of PIE on perovskite crystallization.
Fig. 5: Photovoltaic properties and stability of PSCs.

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Data availability

The main data supporting the findings of this study are available in the Article and the Supplementary Information. All the other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The X-ray crystallographic coordinates for the structures reported in this study have been deposited at the CCDC under deposition numbers 2503876 and 2503877. These data can be obtained free of charge from the CCDC via www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/data_request/cif.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52350610264, C.-C.C.) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (22ZR1428200, C.-C.C.). We acknowledge the Siyuan-1 cluster supported by the Center for High Performance Computing at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We acknowledge the Instrumental Analysis Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University for testing and XPS spectra. We also acknowledge the staff of beamline BL10U1 and BL14B1 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) for their help in the characterization of GIWAXS.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Congcong Tian, Anxin Sun, Jinling Chen, Rongshan Zhuang, Jiajun Du, Qianwen Chen & Chun-Chao Chen

  2. Future Energy Research Institute of Shanghai, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), Shanghai, China

    Chen Chen, Jiawei Zheng & Shuo Liu

  3. Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Medical Physics and Image Processing Technology, School of Physics and Electronics, Institute of Materials and Clean Energy, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China

    Lei Cai & Shulin Han

  4. Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Feng Tian

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Contributions

C.-C.C. supervised the project. C.-C.C. and C.T. conceived and designed the experiments. C.T., C.C., J.Z., S.L., Q.C., L.C., S.H. and F.T. performed the experiments. C.-C.C., C.T., A.S., R.Z. and J.D. analysed the data. C.T. and J.C. performed the DFT calculations. C.T. wrote the original draft of the paper. C.-C.C. reviewed and edited the paper. All authors contributed to the final paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chun-Chao Chen.

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Nature Photonics thanks Eric Diau, Emilio Palomares and Zonglong Zhu for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Notes 1–15, Figs. 1–105, Tables 1–15 and Methods.

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Supplementary Video 1 (download MOV )

Left view of the perovskite (100) crystal plane with PIE.

Supplementary Video 2 (download MOV )

Top view of the perovskite (100) crystal plane with PIE.

Supplementary Video 3 (download MOV )

Left view of the perovskite (110) crystal plane with PIE.

Supplementary Video 4 (download MOV )

Top view of the perovskite (110) crystal plane with PIE.

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Tian, C., Sun, A., Chen, J. et al. Photostable donor–acceptor interface for minimizing energy loss in inverted perovskite solar cells. Nat. Photon. 20, 287–295 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01827-6

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