Non-wetting surface-driven high-aspect-ratio crystalline grain growth for efficient hybrid perovskite solar cells

Authors

Cheng Bi, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Qi Wang, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Yongbo Yuan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Zhengguo Xiao, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Jinsong Huang, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

6-2015

Citation

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 6:7747
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8747 |

Comments

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Abstract

Large-aspect-ratio grains are needed in polycrystalline thin-film solar cells for reduced charge recombination at grain boundaries; however, the grain size in organolead trihalide perovskite (OTP) films is generally limited by the film thickness. Here we report the growth of OTP grains with high average aspect ratio of 2.3–7.9 on a wide range of non-wetting hole transport layers (HTLs), which increase nucleus spacing by suppressing heterogeneous nucleation and facilitate grain boundary migration in grain growth by imposing less drag force. The reduced grain boundary area and improved crystallinity dramatically reduce the charge recombination in OTP thin films to the level in OTP single crystals. Combining the high work function of several HTLs, a high stabilized device efficiency of 18.3% in low-temperature-processed planar-heterojunction OTP devices under 1 sun illumination is achieved. This simple method in enhancing OTP morphology paves the way for its application in other optoelectronic devices for enhanced performance.

Includes supplementary materials.