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Defect passivation and optical management of triple-junction solar cells
Nature
(2026) Cite this article
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Perovskite/perovskite/silicon-based triple-junction solar cells are a promising low-cost route to surpass the Shockley–Queisser efficiency limit of single-junction photovoltaics, but their performance is constrained by non-radiative losses in wide-bandgap perovskites and sub-optimal light management across the multilayer stack1-3. Here, we introduce a passivating molecule, 4F-POEABr, which strongly suppresses surface-defect-mediated recombination of WBG perovskite films. The ammonium attached and electron-deficient structure of 4F-POEABr provides combined chemical and field-effect passivation, enabling a quasi-Fermi-level splitting of 1.53 eV and an open-circuit voltage of 1.413 V in the WBG sub-cell. In parallel, systematic interference management is used to optimize the current density of the current-limited middle sub-cell, yielding a gain of 0.5 mA cm⁻2 via a tailored tin oxide/indium zinc oxide bilayer structure. As a result, the triple-junction devices achieve certified steady-state power conversion efficiencies of 32.22% for a 1.046 cm2 aperture area and 26.97% for a 15.62 cm2 aperture area, with negligible hysteresis. Robust interconnection layers and engineered perovskite interfaces further enhance operational stability and reduce device-to-device variation. This work demonstrates a synergistic strategy for pushing perovskite/silicon triple-junction solar cells toward their theoretical efficiency limits, enabling scalable, high-performance photovoltaic technologies.
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These authors contributed equally: Ye Xu, Zhijie Wang, Chen Deng, Lianlian Qi, Yi Mo
State Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Science and Technology, Trina Solar, Changzhou, P. R. China
Ye Xu, Chen Deng, Lianlian Qi, Yi Mo, Danni Yu, Yao Wang, Xiaobing Ding, Rui Xia, Dongdong Yan, Pengcheng Ge, Delei Xin, Guangtao Yang, Li Yin, Pietro P. Altermatt, Zhigang Xie, Xueling Zhang, Jifan Gao & Yifeng Chen