On March 17, High Technology Research and Development Center (Basic Research Management Center) of the Ministry of Science and Technology unveiled. China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances for 2022. “A breakthrough in all-perovskite tandem solar cells”, the achievement of Professor Tan Hairen from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, NJU, and his team, is on the list.

All-perovskite Tandem Solar Cells Setting World Record for Efficiency

By designing the polarity of the passivation molecules, Tan team has enhanced the adsorption strength on the defect sites on the surface of narrow bandgap chalcogenide grains. This has significantly enhanced the defect passivation and significantly improved the efficiency of all-chalcogenide stacked cells. An independent test by the Japan Electrical Safety & Environment Technology Laboratories (JET) shows that the tandem solar cell has achieved a record-breaking 26.4% efficiency for perovskite solar cells, surpassing single-junction perovskite solar cells for the first time. This efficiency matches the highest efficiency of mainstream silicon solar cells on the market. The researchers have developed a scalable manufacturing technology for large-area tandem photovoltaic modules, employing a dense semiconductor barrier layer to prevent contact between the perovskite and metal back electrode in the interconnected module area. This innovation significantly improves the photovoltaic performance and stability of the modules, resulting in a tandem module with an internationally certified efficiency of 21.7% (with an area of 20cm²).

Prof. Tan Hairen

Tan Hairen, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, NJU, received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees respectively from Central South University, Institute of Semiconductors at Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Delft University of Technology, Holland in 2008, 2011, and 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto, Canada. He has been engaged in the research of new photovoltaic materials and devices, including chalcogenide solar cells, silicon-based solar cells, and new high-efficiency and low-cost stacked solar cells. The world record, set by his team, for the efficiency of chalcogenide stacked cells has been included in the industry's authoritative list “Solar cell efficiency tables” six times. He has published more than 90 papers in Science, Nature, Nature Energy and other academic journals, with a total of more than 10,000 citations, and has been selected as one of the "Highly Cited Researchers" by Clarivate in 2021 and 2022. His achievement is on the list of the “China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances”, “China’s Top 10 Optical Breakthroughs”, and “China’s Top 10 Semiconductor Advances”. He is on the editorial board of Communications Materials, Journal of Semiconductors, SCIENCE CHINA Materials, and a guest editor of Nanophotonics, Applied Physics Letters, and other journals.

China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances for 2022

1. Successful revelation of layered subsurface of the utopia plantitia by Zhurong, the Mars rover of China.

2. Characterization of active repeating fast radio bursts by FAST

3.Splitting seawater into hydrogen fuel using new mechanism

4. The mutation traits and immune evasion mechanisms of omicron variants

5. A breakthrough in all-perovskite tandem solar cells

6. Single-element tellurium switch promises denser memory chips

7. Quantum coherent synthesis of ultracold triatomic molecules

8.Synthesis of ethylene glycol under ambient pressure

9. Direct 3D lithography of stable perovskite nanocrystals in glass

10. Experimental verification of segmented fermi surface in superconductivity

Translator: Shi Xueru

Editors: Chen Xing, He Yao