November 5, 2025 – Exciting news emerged from the global energy sector, as a research team from the University of New South Wales, Australia, achieved a milestone breakthrough in silicon solar cell technology. They successfully identified a stable organic material, enabling for the first time an efficient and long-lasting “singlet fission” effect in silicon-based cells. This novel technology, capable of “splitting” sunlight, provides a new pathway to overcome the efficiency bottleneck of silicon solar cells. The related findings have been published in the authoritative international journal ACS Energy Letters.
The Secret of “Photon Multiplication”: How Does Singlet Fission Break Physical Limits?
In traditional silicon solar cells, there exists a nearly insurmountable “Shockley-Queisser limit” – meaning a single photon can at most excite one electron-hole pair. This implies that high-energy photons (like blue and violet light) with energy significantly higher than the silicon bandgap waste their excess energy as heat after being absorbed, leading to a theoretical efficiency ceiling of approximately 33.7%. The emergence of “singlet fission” technology is key to breaking this constraint.
“Singlet fission is a unique photophysical process that allows one high-energy photon to split into two lower-energy ‘excitons’ (excited electron-hole pairs) within specific materials,” explained the head of the research team in an interview. The core of this breakthrough lies in the team depositing an organic molecular layer just a few nanometers thick onto the silicon cell surface, creating an efficient “photon splitting-charge injection” channel. When sunlight hits the cell surface, high-energy photons are first captured by the organic layer and undergo fission, generating two excitons whose energy matches the silicon bandgap. These excitons then rapidly inject their charge into the underlying silicon layer. This process effectively allows one photon to generate two usable charges, directly increasing the current output efficiency of the cell.
Foundation of Stability: New Organic Material Solves the “Short Lifespan” Problem
In fact, the singlet fission effect is not being observed for the first time, but applying this technology to silicon solar cells has previously faced a core bottleneck: material stability. Organic materials used in earlier studies often degraded rapidly under light and heat conditions, with fission efficiency significantly decaying within hours, failing to meet practical application requirements.
The new organic material developed by the team has completely changed this situation. This material possesses a unique molecular structure: its conjugated backbone not only efficiently captures photons and triggers fission but also exhibits excellent thermal and photochemical stability. Experimental data show that in silicon cells based on this material, the singlet fission efficiency remains above 90% of its initial value after 1000 hours of continuous illumination, far exceeding the performance of previous similar materials. Furthermore, the preparation process for this organic layer is simple and low-cost, allowing for large-scale deposition via methods like solution spin-coating, demonstrating strong compatibility with existing silicon cell production lines, laying a solid foundation for industrial application.
Industry Impact: Efficiency Leap to Drive Further Reductions in PV Costs
Currently, the average conversion efficiency of global silicon solar cells is about 22%-24%, with the highest laboratory efficiency nearing 27%. Industry experts analyzing this breakthrough in singlet fission technology suggest it could raise the theoretical efficiency limit of silicon cells to over 35%, with laboratory efficiencies potentially breaking the 30% barrier in the short term. Increased efficiency directly implies a decrease in the “Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)” – under the same lighting conditions, high-efficiency cells can generate more electricity, amortizing fixed costs such as equipment investment and land use.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that for every 1 percentage point increase in PV cell efficiency, the global LCOE for solar PV could decrease by approximately 7%. If this technological breakthrough achieves industrialization, it will accelerate the substitution process of PV energy in the global energy structure, providing powerful momentum for achieving “carbon neutrality” goals.
Beyond the silicon cell domain, this technology also provides new ideas for the development of novel photovoltaic devices. The research team stated that in the future, they will explore the possibility of combining this organic material with perovskite cells, tandem cells, and others, to further unlock the potential of the singlet fission effect. Some industry insiders comment that this breakthrough is not only a significant milestone in the history of silicon solar cell development but also marks a new phase for PV technology advancing from “optimizing the existing” to “breaking the limits.”
Translating these cutting-edge laboratory breakthroughs into tangible industrial value relies on enterprises like Multifit that are deeply rooted in the market.
Multifit is a National High-Tech Enterprise dedicated to the R&D, production, sales of green energy such as solar power generation, as well as PV power plant construction, cleaning, and operation & maintenance services. Headquartered in Beijing, its production base is located in the National Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone in Shantou City, Guangdong Province, with a branch established in Shenzhen.
The company focuses on the technological development, production, sales, and system integration of solar cleaning robots and supporting equipment, PV inverter power supplies, portable solar power supplies, MPPT solar charge controllers, solar LED street lighting systems, and their supporting products; as well as the design, development, investment, and construction of solar power generation system projects and electrical automation projects, and the cleaning and operation & maintenance of PV power stations.
Post time: Nov-25-2025