Engineered ligands deliver durable high efficiency perovskite solar cells

by Sophie Jenkins
London, UK (SPX) Jan 14, 2026

Scientists have reported a new way to make perovskite solar cells both highly efficient and markedly more stable, directly tackling one of the main obstacles to bringing this emerging photovoltaic technology into large scale deployment.

Perovskite semiconductors have been widely promoted as candidates for the next generation of solar power because they can be processed at low temperatures into thin, lightweight and potentially flexible devices that could be cheaper to manufacture than conventional silicon panels. However, leading perovskite formulations tend to degrade under sustained heat or illumination, causing rapid efficiency losses and limiting their practical operating lifetimes in real world conditions.

A team led by Professor Thomas Anthopoulos from The University of Manchester has now demonstrated that carefully engineered surface chemistry can substantially reinforce device stability without sacrificing power output. The researchers focused on the ultra thin molecular layers that form at the interface between the traditional three dimensional perovskite absorber and its surrounding environment, a region that plays a critical role in both charge transport and environmental protection.

In the new work, the group used specially designed small molecules known as amidinium ligands, which act like a molecular glue to help hold the perovskite lattice together at the surface. By tuning the chemical structure of these multivalent ligands, they were able to direct the growth of a low dimensional perovskite phase on top of the bulk three dimensional material, creating a highly ordered interfacial architecture.

These low dimensional surface layers form a smooth, continuous and robust protective coating that suppresses the formation of tiny defects and traps, which otherwise act as initiation points for decomposition and non radiative recombination. The improved structural order and defect passivation allow electrical charges generated by sunlight to move more freely through the device while shielding the underlying perovskite from damaging thermal and photochemical stresses.

Using this dimensional engineering strategy, the team fabricated inverted perovskite solar cells that reached a power conversion efficiency of 25.4 percent, placing them among the most efficient devices reported for this architecture. Crucially, the cells maintained more than 95 percent of their initial performance after 1,100 hours of continuous operation at 85 degrees Celsius under full sunlight, a demanding test condition that simulates prolonged field exposure.

Professor Anthopoulos said that this stability advance could help resolve one of the final major challenges for perovskite photovoltaics as they move towards commercialisation. He noted that although state of the art perovskite devices already rival silicon in power output, their long term reliability has lagged behind because many material compositions are intrinsically unstable when exposed to heat or high intensity light for extended periods.

According to Anthopoulos, the amidinium ligands developed in this project, together with the fundamental understanding gained about how they regulate interfacial structure, now provide a route to grow high quality and resilient perovskite layers in a controlled and reproducible manner. He suggested that integrating such tailored surface chemistries into scalable manufacturing processes could help ensure that perovskite modules last long enough to compete directly with established photovoltaic technologies in rooftop, building integrated and utility scale applications.

The full research report, published in the journal Science, details how the multivalent nature of the ligands enables precise control over the dimensional engineering of the perovskite interface and links these structural changes to measured gains in efficiency and stability. The authors also discuss how the concepts demonstrated here could be adapted to other perovskite compositions and device architectures, potentially broadening the impact of this approach across the rapidly evolving field of perovskite optoelectronics.

Research Report:Multivalent ligands regulate dimensional engineering for inverted perovskite solar modules