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Surface Functionalization of Indium Tin Oxide Electrodes by Self-assembled Monolayers for Direct Assembly of Pre-synthesized SnO2 Nanocrystals as Electron Transport Layers

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Abstract

In this study, a (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) monolayer was used as an adhesion promoter to assemble pre-synthesized SnO2 nanocrystal (NC) arrays for use as electron transport layers (ETLs) in perovskite solar cells. The self-assembled monolayers on indium tin oxide (ITO) bottom electrodes interact with the SnO2 NCs via covalent bonding during the spin-coating process, leading to the formation of pinhole-free SnO2 NC layers, which enabled the growth of perovskite films with uniform microstructures. The device performance analyses showed that the resulting photovoltaic efficiency significantly increased from 10.68% to 15.52% with the use of the APTES monolayer. This increase in the photovoltaic efficiency can be attributed to the reduction in defects at the ETL/perovskite interface and in the bulk. This paper presents a facile, robust, and effective strategy to improve the grafting of SnO2 NCs on flat ITO substrates by using APTES, and thus, increase the quality of the ETL/perovskite interfacial structure.

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Acknowledgements

This research work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (Grant Number: 2022R1A5A7000765).

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  1. School of Advanced Materials Engineering, Kookmin University, Seoul, 02707, Korea

    Son Singh, Rahim Abdur, Ho-Seok Nam, Jae-Hun Kim, Sung-Min Lee & Jaegab Lee

  2. Department of Fashion Industry, Incheon National University, Incheon, 22012, Korea

    Hyunseung Lee

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Singh, S., Abdur, R., Nam, HS. et al. Surface Functionalization of Indium Tin Oxide Electrodes by Self-assembled Monolayers for Direct Assembly of Pre-synthesized SnO2 Nanocrystals as Electron Transport Layers. Electron. Mater. Lett. 19, 267–277 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-022-00403-2

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