Dynamic Iodide Regeneration Enabled by Piperazine‐Tailored PCBM Interfaces for Photothermally Stable and Efficient Inverted Perovskite Photovoltaics
Molecular iodine release under working conditions remains a major obstacle to the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Despite significant progress, developing a simple yet effective strategy to suppress this degradation pathway-while reconciling high photothermal stability and high efficiency without sacrificing charge transport-remains challenging. Here, through integrated molecular design, theoretical modeling, and experimental validation, we develop a new class of piperazine (PA)-tailored fullerene derivative, PCBM-PA, that uniquely exhibits dual functionality in iodine capture and dissociation. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that PCBM-PA promotes I<sub>2</sub> adsorption and I─I bond cleavage at the perovskite surface, facilitating dynamic iodide regeneration. Comprehensive experiments further confirm that PCBM-PA effectively suppresses I<sub>2</sub> release through robust N···I halogen-bonding (XB) interactions, while simultaneously promoting I─I bond cleavage and restoration of iodide ions, consistent with theoretical insights. This coupled "iodine adsorption-dissociation" behavior, unprecedented among previously reported XB acceptors, enables dynamic self-repair of iodine vacancy defects. Consequently, inverted PSCs incorporating PCBM-PA exhibit outstanding photothermal stability, retaining over 93% of their initial efficiency after 1000 h under maximum power point tracking (MPPT) at 65 °C, together with a champion efficiency of 26.26%. This work offers a new molecular-engineering pathway toward iodine-resilient, high-performance perovskite photovoltaics.
Authors
- Geert Brocks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7639-4638)
- Ze Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0936-8640)
- Xufan Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1200-5287)
- Zijin Wu
- Liangyu Zhao
- Shuxia Tao
- Runze Liu
- Huaiman Cao
Institutions
- Dalian University of Technology (CN)
- Eindhoven University of Technology (NL)
- University of Twente (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-01-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.6909224
- Primary Topic
- Perovskite Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities