In Situ Back-Contact Passivation Improves Photovoltage and Fill Factor in Perovskite Solar Cells

Furui Tan, Hairen Tan*, Makhsud I. Saidaminov, Mingyang Wei, Mengxia Liu, Anyi Mei, Peicheng Li, Bowen Zhang, Chih Shan Tan, Xiwen Gong, Yongbiao Zhao, Ahmad R. Kirmani, Ziru Huang, James Z. Fan, Rafael Quintero-Bermudez, Junghwan Kim, Yicheng Zhao, Oleksandr Voznyy, Yueyue Gao, Feng ZhangLee J. Richter, Zheng Hong Lu, Weifeng Zhang, Edward H. Sargent

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

151 Scopus citations

Abstract

Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have seen a rapid rise in power conversion efficiencies in recent years; however, they still suffer from interfacial recombination and charge extraction losses at interfaces between the perovskite absorber and the charge–transport layers. Here, in situ back-contact passivation (BCP) that reduces interfacial and extraction losses between the perovskite absorber and the hole transport layer (HTL) is reported. A thin layer of nondoped semiconducting polymer at the perovskite/HTL interface is introduced and it is shown that the use of the semiconductor polymer permits—in contrast with previously studied insulator-based passivants—the use of a relatively thick passivating layer. It is shown that a flat-band alignment between the perovskite and polymer passivation layers achieves a high photovoltage and fill factor: the resultant BCP enables a photovoltage of 1.15 V and a fill factor of 83% in 1.53 eV bandgap PSCs, leading to an efficiency of 21.6% in planar solar cells.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1807435
JournalAdvanced Materials
Volume31
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 5 2019

Funding

F.T. and H.T. contributed equally to this work. This publication is based in part on work supported by the US Office of Naval Research (Grant Award No.: N00014-17-1-2524), by the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence Program, and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. The work of F.T. was also supported by the China Scholarship Council (201608410244). This work was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 61306019), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (Grant no. 162300410026), the Key Member of Young Teachers (Grant no. 2016GGJS-019), and the Henan University Fund. H.T. acknowledges the Rubicon grant (680-50-1511) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the National 1000 Young Talents award in China. The authors thank P. M. Brodersen from Ontario Centre for Characterization of Advanced Materials (OCCAM) for TOF-SIMS measurements and analysis. Beamline 7.3.3 of the Advanced Light Source was supported by the Director of the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. M.I.S. acknowledges the support of the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, administered by the Government of Canada.

Keywords

  • band alignment
  • passivation
  • perovskite solar cells
  • semiconducting polymers

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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