Toughened self-assembled monolayers for durable perovskite solar cells

Wenlin JIANG; Geping QU; Xiaofeng HUANG; Xia CHEN; Linyuan CHI; Tonghui WANG; Chun-To WONG; Francis R. LIN; Chunlei YANG; Qing JIANG; Shengfan WU; Jie ZHANG; Alex K.-Y. JEN

doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09509-7

Toughened self-assembled monolayers for durable perovskite solar cells

Wenlin JIANG
, Geping QU
, Xiaofeng HUANG
, Xia CHEN
, Linyuan CHI
, Tonghui WANG
, Chun-To WONG
, Francis R. LIN
, Chunlei YANG
, Qing JIANG^*
, Shengfan WU^*
, Jie ZHANG^*
, Alex K.-Y. JEN^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Interdisciplinary Studies

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Hole-selective self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)1,2 have played a key role in driving the certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) of inverted perovskite solar cells3,4,5 to 26.7% (ref. 6). However, their instability often compromises the operational performance of devices, strongly hindering their practical applications7,8. Here we employ a cross-linkable co-SAM to enhance the conformational stability of hole-selective SAMs against external stresses, while suppressing the formation of defects and voids in SAM during self-assembly. The azide-containing SAM can be thermally activated to form a cross-linked and densely assembled co-SAM with a thermally stable conformation and preferred orientation. This effectively minimizes substrate surface exposure caused by wiggling of loose SAMs under thermal stress, preventing perovskite decomposition. This enables a certified PCE of 26.92% to be achieved for the best-performing cell, which also possesses excellent thermal stability with negligible decay under maximum-power-point tracking at 85 °C for 1,000 h. It also retains >98% of initial PCE after 700 repetitive thermal cycles between −40 °C and 85 °C, representing the state of the art of the field. This work offers an in-depth understanding of SAM degradation mechanisms to guide the design of a more robust buried interface for SAM-based devices adopting high-roughness substrates to realize highly efficient and durable perovskite solar cells.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	95-101
Number of pages	7
Journal	Nature
Volume	646
Issue number	8083
Early online date	17 Sept 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09509-7
Publication status	Published - 2 Oct 2025

Bibliographical note

These authors contributed equally: Wenlin Jiang, Geping Qu

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025.

Funding

We thank M.Q.C. from City University of Hong Kong and Z.X.X. from the South University of Science and Technology for their support with long-term device stability tests. A.K.-Y.J. acknowledges sponsorship from the Lee Shau-Kee Chair Professor (Materials Science), and support from APRC grants of the City University of Hong Kong (grant nos. 9380086, 9610419, 9610440, 9610492 and 9610508), the TCFS (grant no. GHP/018/20SZ), MHKJFS (grant no. MHP/054/23) and MRP (grant no. MRP/040/21X) grants from the Innovation and Technology Commission of Hong Kong, the Green Tech Fund from the Environment and Ecology Bureau of Hong Kong (grant no. 202020164), and GRF (grant nos. 11304424, 11307621, 11316422 and 11308625) and CRS grants (CRS_CityU104/23, CRS_HKUST203/23) from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. This work was partially financially supported by the City University of Hong Kong (grant no. 9610739) via the ‘Fostering Innovation for Resilience and Sustainable Transformation’ project, which is officially endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization under the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024–2033). J.Z. is grateful for sponsorship from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 52002393). S.F.W. is grateful for the support from Start-up Fund (Lingnan University, Hong Kong). T.W. and Q.J. are grateful to the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2023YFB3003001) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 52130101) for their support. We acknowledge Towngas Energy Chuangke (Shenzhen) for their assistance with device certification.

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title = "Toughened self-assembled monolayers for durable perovskite solar cells",

abstract = "Hole-selective self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)1,2 have played a key role in driving the certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) of inverted perovskite solar cells3,4,5 to 26.7\% (ref. 6). However, their instability often compromises the operational performance of devices, strongly hindering their practical applications7,8. Here we employ a cross-linkable co-SAM to enhance the conformational stability of hole-selective SAMs against external stresses, while suppressing the formation of defects and voids in SAM during self-assembly. The azide-containing SAM can be thermally activated to form a cross-linked and densely assembled co-SAM with a thermally stable conformation and preferred orientation. This effectively minimizes substrate surface exposure caused by wiggling of loose SAMs under thermal stress, preventing perovskite decomposition. This enables a certified PCE of 26.92\% to be achieved for the best-performing cell, which also possesses excellent thermal stability with negligible decay under maximum-power-point tracking at 85 °C for 1,000 h. It also retains >98\% of initial PCE after 700 repetitive thermal cycles between −40 °C and 85 °C, representing the state of the art of the field. This work offers an in-depth understanding of SAM degradation mechanisms to guide the design of a more robust buried interface for SAM-based devices adopting high-roughness substrates to realize highly efficient and durable perovskite solar cells.",

author = "Wenlin JIANG and Geping QU and Xiaofeng HUANG and Xia CHEN and Linyuan CHI and Tonghui WANG and Chun-To WONG and LIN, \{Francis R.\} and Chunlei YANG and Qing JIANG and Shengfan WU and Jie ZHANG and JEN, \{Alex K.-Y.\}",

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AU - WANG, Tonghui

AU - WONG, Chun-To

AU - LIN, Francis R.

AU - YANG, Chunlei

AU - JIANG, Qing

AU - WU, Shengfan

AU - ZHANG, Jie

AU - JEN, Alex K.-Y.

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N2 - Hole-selective self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)1,2 have played a key role in driving the certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) of inverted perovskite solar cells3,4,5 to 26.7% (ref. 6). However, their instability often compromises the operational performance of devices, strongly hindering their practical applications7,8. Here we employ a cross-linkable co-SAM to enhance the conformational stability of hole-selective SAMs against external stresses, while suppressing the formation of defects and voids in SAM during self-assembly. The azide-containing SAM can be thermally activated to form a cross-linked and densely assembled co-SAM with a thermally stable conformation and preferred orientation. This effectively minimizes substrate surface exposure caused by wiggling of loose SAMs under thermal stress, preventing perovskite decomposition. This enables a certified PCE of 26.92% to be achieved for the best-performing cell, which also possesses excellent thermal stability with negligible decay under maximum-power-point tracking at 85 °C for 1,000 h. It also retains >98% of initial PCE after 700 repetitive thermal cycles between −40 °C and 85 °C, representing the state of the art of the field. This work offers an in-depth understanding of SAM degradation mechanisms to guide the design of a more robust buried interface for SAM-based devices adopting high-roughness substrates to realize highly efficient and durable perovskite solar cells.

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ER -

Toughened self-assembled monolayers for durable perovskite solar cells

Abstract

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