Perovskite seeding growth of formamidinium-lead-iodide-based perovskites for efficient and stable solar cells

Yicheng Zhao, Hairen Tan, Haifeng Yuan, Zhenyu Yang, James Z. Fan, Junghwan Kim, Oleksandr Voznyy, Xiwen Gong, Li Na Quan, Chih Shan Tan, Johan Hofkens, Dapeng Yu, Qing Zhao, Edward H. Sargent

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

358 Scopus citations

Abstract

Formamidinium-lead-iodide (FAPbI3)-based perovskites with bandgap below 1.55 eV are of interest for photovoltaics in view of their close-to-ideal bandgap. Record-performance FAPbI3-based solar cells have relied on fabrication via the sequential-deposition method; however, these devices exhibit unstable output under illumination due to the difficulty of incorporating cesium cations (stabilizer) in sequentially deposited films. Here we devise a perovskite seeding method that efficiently incorporates cesium and beneficially modulates perovskite crystallization. First, perovskite seed crystals are embedded in the PbI2 film. The perovskite seeds serve as cesium sources and act as nuclei to facilitate crystallization during the formation of perovskite. Perovskite films with perovskite seeding growth exhibit a lowered trap density, and the resulting planar solar cells achieve stabilized efficiency of 21.5% with a high open-circuit voltage of 1.13 V and a fill factor that exceeds 80%. The Cs-containing FAPbI3-based devices show a striking improvement in operational stability and retain 60% of their initial efficiency after 140 h operation under one sun illumination.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalNature Communications
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 23 2018
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): KUS-11-009-21
Acknowledgements: This work was supported by an award (KUS-11-009-21) from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), by the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence Program, by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 51622201, 91733301, 61571015, 11327902, and 51522201), and National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFA0300802, 2016YFA0300903). H.T. acknowledges the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for a Rubicon grant (680-50-1511) to support his postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto. H.Y. acknowledges the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for a postdoctoral fellowship. We thank R. Wolowiec, E. Palmiano, and D. Kopilovic for their help during the course of study.
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.

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