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Crystal-solvate pre-seeded synthesis for scalable perovskite solar cell fabrication

Nature Synthesis (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Buried morphological and electronic defects of solution-synthesized perovskite films are detrimental to the photovoltaic stability and performance of state-of-the-art inverted perovskite solar cells based on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). Previous studies have attempted to alleviate this synthesis issue by molecular tailoring of SAMs. Here we use pre-seeding of low-dimensional halide crystal solvates (CSVs) to trigger the formation of perovskite film bottoms with suppressed morphological and electronic defects. CSVs enable nanostructure-guided wetting of the perovskite precursor solution on SAMs and unlock lattice-confined solvent annealing of the perovskite film bottom, mitigating interfacial voids and nanogrooves. This method also leads to CSV-derived halide compound passivation at the film bottom, reducing electronic defects and enabling hole-extraction-favouring interfacial energetics. The sequential multi-functionality enabled by CSV pre-seeding surpasses the nucleation control in conventional seeding strategies. Resultant inverted perovskite solar cells deliver a power conversion efficiency of 26.13% with a high fill factor of 86.75%. These devices demonstrate improved light and thermal stabilities under ISOS-L-1 and ISOS-T-1 test protocols. The scalability of CSV pre-seeding is demonstrated with 23.15% power conversion efficiency achieved for a 49.91 cm2 perovskite solar mini-module.

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Fig. 1: Mechanism of CSV pre-seeding.
Fig. 2: Microstructures of perovskite film bottoms with and without CSV pre-seeding.
Fig. 3: Improved charge dynamics, mechanical reliability and microstructural stability.
Fig. 4: Solar cell efficiency, stability and scalability.

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Data availability

All of the data that support the main findings are available in the main text and Supplementary Information. Crystallographic data for the structures reported in this Article have been deposited in the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre database under deposition numbers 2513303, 2513309 and 2513311, corresponding to PDPbI4·DMSO, (SMOR)2Pb2I6·4DMSO and (CHDA)0.5PbI3·2DMSO, respectively. Copies of the data can be obtained free of charge via https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the China Merchants Group, particularly the China Merchants Testing Technology Holdings and China Merchants Research Institute of Advanced Technology. Y.Z. acknowledges the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Grant No. 52222318) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the General Research Fund (Grant No. 12300923) and the Collaborative Research Fund (Grant No. C2001-23Y) from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC), the NSFC/RGC Collaborative Research Scheme (Grant No. CRS_HKUST203/23), and the startup grant from the HKUST. S.P. acknowledges funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52272255 and 22379156).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xiuhong Sun, Mingwei Hao.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Conversion and Utilization of Solar Energy, Qingdao New Energy Shandong Laboratory, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China

    Xiuhong Sun, Kaiyu Wang, Bingqian Zhang & Shuping Pang

  2. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Mingwei Hao, Kuan Wang, Yalan Zhang & Yuanyuan Zhou

  3. College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

    Xuexuan Huang & Chenghao Bi

  4. Energy Institute, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Yuanyuan Zhou

  5. Otto Poon Centre for Climate Resilience and Sustainability, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Yuanyuan Zhou

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Contributions

Y.Z. and S.P. conceived of the idea and directed and supervised the project. X.S. performed the materials and film synthesis, device fabrication and device characterizations. M.H. performed the AFM characterization, adhesion tests and part of the film synthesis. Kaiyu Wang assisted with the analysis of single crystals. Kuan Wang assisted with interface characterization. Y.Z. contributed to the steady-state PL measurements. B.Z. assisted with the SEM characterization. X.H. and C.B. conducted the transient absorption tests. Y.Z., X.S., M.H. and S.P. co-drafted the manuscript. All co-authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shuping Pang or Yuanyuan Zhou.

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Competing interests

Y.Z., S.P. and X.S. have co-filed a Chinese patent (2024119056534) based on this work. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Synthesis thanks Dong Suk Kim and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Alexandra Groves, in collaboration with the Nature Synthesis team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–50 and Tables 1 and 2.

Reporting Summary (download PDF )

Supplementary Data 1

CCDC_2513303_PDPbI4·DMSO.

Supplementary Data 2

CCDC_2513311_(CHDA)0.5PbI3·2DMSO.

Supplementary Data 3

CCDC_2513309_(SMOR)2Pb2I6·4DMSO.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1 (download XLS )

Signal source data.

Source Data Fig. 2 (download XLS )

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 3 (download XLS )

Signal source data.

Source Data Fig. 4 (download XLS )

Signal and statistical source data.

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Sun, X., Hao, M., Wang, K. et al. Crystal-solvate pre-seeded synthesis for scalable perovskite solar cell fabrication. Nat. Synth (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-026-00993-x

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