In the race to squeeze more electricity from every ray of sunlight, scientists have just taken a remarkable step forward. A new study reports record-breaking efficiency and durability in next-generation solar cells — and it could bring truly affordable clean energy closer to reality.
At the heart of this breakthrough lies a clever re-engineering of materials at the tiniest scales. Researchers from the University of Sydney, Xiamen University and several international partners have developed triple-junction solar cells that combine three layers — two made of perovskite compounds and one of silicon — to harvest a broader range of the Sun’s spectrum than ever before.
Triple-junction cells have long been hailed as the ultimate solar technology. In theory, they could convert more than half of incoming sunlight into usable energy. In practice, though, real-world versions have fallen short, mainly because of tiny flaws and mismatched interfaces between the layers. This team tackled those flaws head-on — and it paid off handsomely.
Their new devices achieved a third-party-verified power-conversion efficiency of 27.06% for a standard one-square-centimetre cell and a certified 23.3% for a much larger 16-square-centimetre module — outstanding figures for this kind of solar technology. Even more impressively, an encapsulated version retained 95% of its original performance after 407 hours of continuous operation and passed rigorous international durability tests involving temperature swings between –40 °C and 85 °C.
So how did they do it? The team fine-tuned the nanoscale interfaces where energy losses usually occur. They replaced a commonly used but unstable material, lithium fluoride, with a new compound called piperazine-1,4-diium chloride (PDCl). This change smoothed out surface defects and improved the flow of electric charge. They also added rubidium atoms to the perovskite structure, which made the material far more stable under light and heat.
Another ingenious innovation involved sprinkling an ultra-thin layer of gold nanoparticles between two of the perovskite layers. These particles help electrons move freely while minimising the light losses that typically plague multi-layer cells. Finding just the right particle size and density turned out to be crucial — too little gold and the layers wouldn’t connect properly; too much and light absorption would drop. After extensive modelling and microscopy, the researchers struck the perfect balance.
The results point to a future where solar panels could produce more power from the same footprint and last long enough to compete with conventional silicon modules in the real world. “Improving the efficiency and stability of perovskite–silicon tandem solar cells is essential to reduce the cost of clean energy,” says lead author Anita Ho-Baillie of the University of Sydney.
Although there’s still work to do — especially in scaling up production and refining the middle perovskite layer to capture more red light — this study shows just how fast the field is advancing. Five years ago, similar devices barely managed 14% efficiency. Today, they’re challenging the performance of commercial silicon panels while being lighter and easier to manufacture.
With the world hungry for reliable renewable energy, these shimmering stacks of perovskite and silicon could soon play a starring role in powering our net-zero future.
Source
Tailoring nanoscale interfaces for perovskite–perovskite–silicon triple-junction solar cells, Nature Nanotechnology, 2025-10-07
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