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Tin-based perovskite solar cells with a homogeneous buried interface

Nature volume 648, pages 84–90 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Tin-based perovskite solar cells (TPSCs) have emerged as a promising non-toxic and environmentally friendly alternative to lead-based devices1,2,3, with certified power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of inverted architectures now exceeding 16% (refs. 4,5,6,7,8). Despite an ideal bandgap supporting a theoretical PCE of more than 33%, TPSCs still lag in performance and stability, partly because of suboptimal hole transport layers and a poor buried interface that hinder hole extraction. Here we report (E)-(2-(4′,5′-bis(4-(bis(4-methoxyphenyl)amino)phenyl)-[2,2′-bithiophen]−5-yl)−1-cyanovinyl)phosphonic acid at the buried interface, using a molecular film to optimize hole transport layers in inverted TPSCs. This molecular film forms a homogeneous interfacial layer with well-matched energy-level alignment, markedly enhancing hole extraction. Moreover, this approach creates a superwetting underlayer that guides the growth of uniform, high-quality Sn-based perovskite films with reduced defect density and minimized non-radiative recombination losses. The resulting inverted small-area TPSCs demonstrate a record PCE of 17.89% (certified 17.71% under reverse scanning mode). Furthermore, the encapsulated device maintains more than 95% of the initial PCE after 1,344 h of ambient shelf storage and more than 94% after 1,550 h of continuous operation under 1-sun illumination. Notably, we achieve a record PCE of 14.40% for 1 cm2 TPSCs, highlighting the scalability of our strategy.

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Fig. 1: Homogeneous molecular distribution and optimized band alignment for enhanced hole extraction and transfer.
Fig. 2: Morphologies and structures of Sn-based perovskite films at buried interfaces.
Fig. 3: High phase purity minimizes interfacial energy losses.
Fig. 4: Photovoltaic performance of TPSCs.

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

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Acknowledgements

J.L. acknowledges the funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52102219 and 52471197). Y.R. acknowledges the funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52202178). H.W. acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62074109, 22372114). B.X. acknowledges the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20240083) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22279059, W2412114). Y.Q. acknowledges the support from the Global Institute of Future Technology and the Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study in Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Smart Materials and Future Energy, State Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Tianpeng Li, Peilin Wang, Zuoming Jin, Wenqi Zhang & Jia Liang

  2. Key Laboratory for Soft Chemistry and Functional Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Xin Luo & Bo Xu

  3. Department of Control Science & Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Zhi Li

  4. Key Laboratory of Interface Science and Engineering in Advanced Materials, Ministry of Education, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, China

    Yimeng Li & Hua Wang

  5. Shanghai Nanoshine Technology, Shanghai, China

    Jinhai Huang

  6. School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yingguo Yang

  7. Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Yingguo Yang

  8. State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, China

    Bin Li & Qinghong Zhang

  9. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China

    Siyuan Lin & Yichuan Rui

  10. Center of Micro-Nano System, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yiqiang Zhan

  11. Global Institute of Future Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Yabing Qi

  12. Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Yabing Qi

Authors
  1. Tianpeng Li
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  2. Xin Luo
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Contributions

T.L. fabricated and characterized the devices and wrote the original draft. X.L., Y.L., J.H., H.W. and B.X. designed and synthesized MBC and MBP. P.W. and Z.L. conducted all calculations. P.W., Z.L., W.Z. and Z.J. actively contributed to all discussions. Y.Y. contributed to the GIWAXS test and analysis. S.L. and Y.R. contributed to the SEM test and analysis. B.L. and Q.Z. carried out the EIS experiments. Y.Z. and Q.Z. supported this work. J.L. and Y.Q. conceived the idea and were responsible for reviewing and editing the paper, supervision, project administration and funding acquisition for this work. Y.Q. contributed to revisions of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bo Xu, Jia Liang or Yabing Qi.

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Competing interests

J.H. is the founder of Shanghai Nanoshine Technology, which commercializes functional materials for perovskite photovoltaics. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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This file contains Supplementary Schemes 1–4, Supplementary Note I, Supplementary Figs. 1–31, Supplementary Tables 1–5 and references.

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Li, T., Luo, X., Wang, P. et al. Tin-based perovskite solar cells with a homogeneous buried interface. Nature 648, 84–90 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09724-2

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