Research Breakthrough Suggests That Perovskite Solar Panels Can Reach Over 30% Efficiency If Manufacturing Issues Can Be Solved Via Chemically Guided Manufacturing

   

     Researchers from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported a research breakthrough that gives a potentially significant boost to the efficiency of perovskite solar panels. Solar energy technology has been defined over the years by incremental improvements, and if manufacturing issues can be worked out, this could become one of the biggest incremental improvements. The research paper was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

“The research team achieved a certified power conversion efficiency of 30.3% in rigid tandem solar cells and 28.0% in flexible versions, setting an important milestone for this rapidly developing technology.”

     Perovskite solar cells can be made using low-temperature solution processing, which could reduce manufacturing costs and allow lightweight, flexible solar panels to be produced more easily. “All-perovskite tandem” solar cells stack multiple layers of perovskite materials together so they can absorb different parts of sunlight more effectively than single-layer solar cells. Manufacturing them is challenging because the different ingredients inside the perovskite layers often crystallize at different speeds during manufacturing. This uneven crystal growth creates structural defects and unstable regions inside the material, reducing both efficiency and long-term durability.

     The Chinese Academy of Sciences explains how the problem was overcome in the lab:

“To solve this problem, the researchers developed a new strategy based on a chemistry concept called hard-soft acid-base theory, or HSAB theory. Using this approach, they carefully selected chemical additives that help guide how the perovskite materials crystallize.”

“For wide-bandgap perovskites, the team used an additive called difluoro(oxalato)borate, while narrow-bandgap perovskites used tetrafluoroborate. These additives helped synchronize crystal formation throughout the material, creating smoother and more uniform films.”

“The researchers found that the improved crystal growth reduced defects, prevented uneven distribution of chemical components, and lowered internal stress inside the solar cells. This led to major improvements in performance.”

“The efficiency of wide-bandgap solar cells increased from 18.5% to 20.1%, while narrow-bandgap devices improved from 21.6% to 23.3%.”

    The rigid solar cells retained 92% of their original efficiency after operating continuously for 1,000 hours. The flexible versions maintained more than 95% of their performance even after being bent 10,000 times.

     These kinds of improvements mean that one day in the near future it is likely that rooftop space could support more solar energy production as well as higher output and smaller land footprints for utility-scale solar deployments. Of course, higher efficiency also means lower production costs, less pollution, and fewer carbon emissions. For perovskite panels, the two main problems to be overcome are perovskite durability and how to design manufacturing to scale up production. The new breakthrough addresses both concerns, but especially the first, durability. It does this by solving the problems of asynchronous crystallization through a “generalizable additive design strategy guided by hard–soft acid–base principles to synchronize nucleation and crystal growth in both wide- and narrow-bandgap perovskites.”

 

References:

 

Scientists unveil low-cost solar breakthrough as next-gen cells hit record efficiency. Alex Corvin. The Cool Down. May 24, 2026. Scientists unveil low-cost solar breakthrough as next-gen cells hit record efficiency

New perovskite solar cell breakthrough pushes efficiency beyond 30%. Chinese Academy of Sciences -May 12, 2026. Knowridge. New perovskite solar cell breakthrough pushes efficiency beyond 30%

Chemical hardness engineering synchronizes crystallization in perovskite tandems. Ruijia Tian, Kexuan Sun, Yuanyuan Meng, Jiahan Xie, Yaohua Wang, Xiaoyi Lu, Jingnan Wang, Shujing Zhou, Ming Yang, Haibin Pan, Yang Bai, Zhenhua Song, Yingguo Yang, Quan Liu, Bin Han, Bencan Tang, Darren A. Walsh, Hainam Do, Chang Liu & Ziyi Ge. Nature Nanotechnology. (April 27, 2026). Chemical hardness engineering synchronizes crystallization in perovskite tandems | Nature Nanotechnology