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Air-processed, large grain perovskite films with low trap density from perovskite crystal engineering for high-performance perovskite solar cells with improved ambient stability

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Abstract

High-performance perovskite solar cell processed in ambient air is a big challenge due to the sensitivity of perovskite films to air. Many defects are generated easily at grain boundaries and in the perovskite films by conventional molecular/ion precursor solution mixing methods (i.e., solution mixing-based method), which restrict its stability in air and photovoltaic performance with most power conversion efficiency less than 15%. In this work, we develop a facile method for air-processed, highly crystalline, quasi-3D perovskite film with large grain size (over 6.6 times bigger than that from control conventional method) and improved ambient air stability by phenylethylammonium (PEA)-doped MA1−xPEAxPbI3 perovskite crystal engineering. Furthermore, benefiting from PEA+ doping and crystal engineering, the trap density decreases 50% compared with control. Consequently, with the optimal concentration of PEA doping, the power conversion efficiency increases from 15.6% for conventional solution mixing-based perovskite solar cells to 17.6% for crystal engineering-based ones with significantly improved moisture stability. The perovskite crystal engineering-based solar cells without any encapsulation retain 75% of the initial performance after 30-day storage in ambient air under a relative humidity of 50 ± 10%, and two times faster degradation rate is observed for control, conventional solution mixing-based perovskite solar cells when compared with crystal engineering-based ones.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No.2016YFB0700702), the Natural Science Foundation of China (51502101) and the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB258400). We also thank the testing center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology for SEM, XRD, PL, UV and FTIR measurements.

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  1. Manman Ding and Leijie Sun have contributed to this work equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Manman Ding, Leijie Sun, Xiayan Chen, Tianyuan Luo, Tian Ye, Wenfeng Zhang & Haixin Chang

  2. Shanxi Key Laboratory of Chemical Additives for Industry, Shanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710021, China

    Chunyan Zhao

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  1. Manman Ding
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Correspondence to Haixin Chang.

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Ding, M., Sun, L., Chen, X. et al. Air-processed, large grain perovskite films with low trap density from perovskite crystal engineering for high-performance perovskite solar cells with improved ambient stability. J Mater Sci 54, 12000–12011 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-03768-2

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