Boosting mechanical durability under high humidity by bioinspired multisite polymer for high-efficiency flexible perovskite solar cells

Abstract Flexible perovskite solar cells (FPSCs) with high stability in moist air are required for their practical applications. However, the poor mechanical stability under high humidity air remains a critical challenge for flexible perovskite devices. Herein, inspired by the exceptional wet adhesion of mussels via dopamine groups, we propose a multidentate-cross-linking strategy, which combine multibranched structure and adequate dopamine anchor sites in three-dimensional hyperbranched polymer to directly chelate perovskite materials in multiple directions, therefore construct a vertical scaffold across the bulk of perovskite films from the bottom to the top interfaces, intimately bind to the perovskite grains and substrates with a strong adhesion ability, and enhance mechanical durability under high humidity. Consequently, the modified rigid PSCs achieve superior PCE up to 25.92%, while flexible PSCs exhibit a PCE of 24.43% and maintain 94.1% of initial PCE after 10,000 bending cycles with a bending radius of 3 mm under exposed to 65% humidity.