Surfactant-regulated crystallization enables ambient fabrication of high-performance perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) possess enormous potential and demonstrate promising commercialization prospects. However, the fabrication of perovskite films has been largely restricted to inert environments owing to the material's high sensitivity to moisture and oxygen. Herein, we propose a surfactant-modulated pre-nucleation strategy to enable the ambient fabrication of high-performance perovskite films, while systematically elucidating the interaction mechanism between a multifunctional phosphatidylcholine-based zwitterionic surfactant and perovskite colloids. By regulating the aggregation behavior of perovskite colloids, the energy barrier for nucleation is substantially reduced. This not only accelerates nucleation kinetics but also effectively alleviates the adverse effects of ambient moisture during film fabrication. Furthermore, the surfactant inherently forms a moisture-resistant protective layer on the film surface. Benefiting from this synergistic strategy, high-quality perovskite films with ultralow defect density were successfully fabricated under ambient air conditions. Consequently, the resulting PSC devices achieve a remarkable power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.43% and exhibit excellent long-term stability, retaining 93% of their initial efficiency after 2000 h of storage in an environment with 20%-30% relative humidity.