Publication date: 22nd July 2026
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted worldwide attention due to their high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and low-cost solution processing.
The development of chemically adsorbed monolayers that can efficiently collect photogenerated holes from the perovskite layer and transport them to a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrode as the hole-collecting layer (HCL) is a critical key to boosting the performance of p-i-n PSCs.
As the first generation of our multipodal hole-collecting monolayer materials, we developed a tripodal molecule composed of a triazatruxene core connected with three phosphonic acid anchoring groups (PATAT). We demonstrated that after being chemically adsorbed on the TCO surface, PATAT molecules tend to form a monolayer with a face-on orientation, resulting in improved hole-collection compared to their monopodal and edge-on oriented counterpart.
We also investigated the effect of the core structure and anchoring group on the properties of the corresponding monolayers as well as the performance of the devices.
Recently, we designed a series of isotriazatruxene derivatives bearing three phosphonic acid anchoring groups (iso-PATAT) and its halogen-substituted derivatives. Isotriazatruxene has two indole moieties facing each other, leading to a steric hindrance when bulky substituents such as alkyl phosphonic acid groups were introduced into –NH positions. After being chemically adsorbed, instead of binding to the TCO surface, some phosphonic acid groups were found to point upward, leading to a hydrophilic and face-on oriented monolayer. P-i-n PSC devices using these iso-PATAT molecules as hole-collecting monolayers were fabricated and evaluated. The single-junction and monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells fabricated with iso-PATAT derivatives showed a champion efficiency approaching 26 and 29%, respectively.
In this presentation, our design for multipodal molecules, characterization, and device evaluation will be introduced in detail.
This work was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) (JPNP25011), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) (JP24H00481), and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (JP24K01571).
