Advances in solar photovoltaics are urgently needed to increase the performance and reduce the cost of harvesting solar power. Solution-processed photovoltaics are cost-effective to manufacture and offer the potential for physical flexibility. Rapid progress in their development has increased their solar-power conversion efficiencies. The nanometre (electron) and micrometre (photon) scale interfaces between the crystalline domains that make up solution-processed solar cells are crucial for efficient charge transport. These interfaces include large surface area junctions between photoelectron donors and accep- tors, the intralayer grain boundaries within the absorber, and the interfaces between photoactive layers and the top and bottom contacts. Controlling the collection and minimizing the trapping of charge carriers at these boundaries is crucial to efficiency. Materials interface engineering for solution-processed photovoltaics Michael Graetzel 1 , René A. J. Janssen 2 , David B. Mitzi 3 & Edward H. Sargent 4 1 Institute of Photonics and Interfaces, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 2 Molecular Materials and Nanosystems, Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands. 3 IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA. 4 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G4, Canada. O ne hundred and twenty thousand terawatts of solar power irradiate Earth. Globally, humans consume only 15 terawatts. Solar power is abundant, free and can be harvested with mini- mal effect on the environment. The cost and efficiency of the solar cells that make use of this power are of paramount importance. Single-crystal solar cells are formed from a continuous piece of crystal, but solution-processed photovolta- ics are manufactured on large, potentially flexible substrates (Fig. 1). Light-absorbing and electrode materials are applied to the substrate by techniques such as blade coating, spray coating, printing and slot-die coating. Many solution-processing approaches use low temperatures, reducing the energy cost associated with solar-cell manufacturing and therefore the energy payback time. Lightweight, flexible solar modules can also lower the installation and maintenance costs. Four main families of solution-processed solar technologies are approaching or have exceeded 10% solar-power conversion efficiency. The challenge now is to continue this progress. Advances rely on con- trolling the abundant materials interfaces that make up these highly nanostructured devices. In this Review, we discuss the chemistry, phys- ics and materials science of these interfaces, and their control through materials chemistry. In particular, we focus on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) 1 , organic photovoltaics 2 , solution-processed bulk inorganic photovoltaics 3 and colloidal quantum-dot 4 solar cells. The charge-separating junction is the boundary between two intimately contacted materials at which photogenerated electron– hole pairs are separated into longer-lived charge carriers (Fig. 2a, b). Efficient operation of the solar cell relies on the separation and col- lection of energy-bearing photocarriers before they lose their excess energy through recombination. Typical diffusion lengths for the performance-limiting photocarrier — minority charge carriers — are within the 5–500-nm range in solution-processed semiconductors, but the absorber thickness required to achieve complete absorption of solar irradiation of interest is often considerably more than this. This results in a possible trade-off between electron extraction and opti- cal absorption if a planar absorber is used. To break this compromise, solution-processed solar cells make use of highly nanostructured and mesostructured interfaces. Solution-processed photovoltaic materials generally contain signifi- cant degrees of disorder, often because of the boundaries that define the randomly orientated crystalline domains in both organic and inorganic semiconductors. Transport within these domains, as well as at their boundaries (including transport-limiting mechanisms, such as charge- carrier trapping), requires attention and optimization. One example of a beneficial boundary effect is the quantum confinement of charge carriers to well-defined nanocrystalline domains, such as in semiconductor quantum dots. This effect allows the tuning of energy levels in materials. Wide-ranging tuning is advantageous because the Sun emits such a broad spectrum of light (Fig. 2c). Relying on one absorber bandgap limits the solar-cell power-conversion efficiency to 31% (ref. 5), whereas stacking cells with different bandgaps to create multijunction configurations could increase the power-conversion efficiencies to, in principle, a 68% limit (Fig. 2d). We present the benefits of structured charge-separating interfaces and review the chemical management of their electronic properties, discuss interfaces within light-absorbing materials, describe the management and characterization of these interfaces, and summarize the progress and prospects in the field. Morphology of charge-separating interfaces DSSCs 6 (Fig. 3a) illustrate the use of nanostructured materials to overcome weak absorption. A monolayer of sensitizer molecules is anchored, with a linker, to an electron-accepting large-bandgap semiconductor such as titanium oxide, tin oxide or zinc oxide. If the monolayer was tethered to a planar electrode, it would absorb an insig- nificant fraction of solar radiation (less than 1%). Instead, because the electrode has a high-contact area, a three-dimensional junction is formed with the metal-oxide nanoparticles. This nanostructured elec- trode is many micrometres thick, and the dye–nanoparticle interface is more than a thousand times the area of the solar cell. Interfacial considerations are of particular concern in an architecture in which every absorber molecule also forms one side of the charge- separating junction. Four interfacial electron-transfer reactions have a pivotal role in the efficiency of photoinduced charge separation. Injec- tion of electrons from the dye into the conduction band of the oxide nanoparticles must proceed faster than exciton recombination within the dye. Recombination of forward-injected photoelectrons across the dye–electrode interface must be prevented. The sensitizer must be regenerated by donation of electrons from the electrolyte. Finally, 304 | NATURE | VOL 488 | 16 AUGUST 2012 REVIEW doi:10.1038/nature11476 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved