Addressing the stability issue of perovskite solar cells for commercial applications

When translating photovoltaic technology from laboratory to commercial products, low cost, high power conversion efficiency, and high stability (long lifetime) are the three key metrics to consider in addition to other factors, such as low toxicity, low energy payback time, etc. As one of the most promising photovoltaic materials with high efficiency, today organic–inorganic metal halide perovskites draw tremendous attention from fundamental research, but their practical relevance still remains unclear owing to the notorious short device operation time. In this comment, we discuss the stability issue of perovskite photovoltaics and call for standardized protocols for device characterizations that could possibly match the silicon industrial standards.