Crystalline materials known as perovskites could become the next superstars of solar cells. Over the past few years, researchers have demonstrated that a special class of perovskites—those consisting of a hybrid of organic and inorganic components—convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency above 20 percent and are easier to fabricate and more impervious to defects than the standard solar cell made of crystalline silicon. As fabricated today, however, these organic/inorganic perovskites (OIPs) deteriorate well before the typical 30-year lifetime for silicon cells, which prevents their widespread use in harnessing solar power.