Today's best perovskite solar cells use a mixture of formamidinium and methylammonium as the monovalent cations. With the addition of inorganic cesium, the resulting triple cation perovskite compositions are thermally more stable, contain less phase impurities and are less sensitive to processing conditions. This enables more reproducible device performances to reach a stabilized power output of 21.1% and ∼18% after 250 hours under operational conditions. These properties are key for the industrialization of perovskite photovoltaics.

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Cesium-containing triple cation perovskite solar cells: improved stability, reproducibility and high efficiency

All of the cations currently used in perovskite solar cells abide by the tolerance factor for incorporation into the lattice. We show that the small and oxidation-stable rubidium cation (Rb + ) can be embedded into a “cation cascade” to create perovskite materials with excellent material properties. We achieved stabilized efficiencies of up to 21.6% (average value, 20.2%) on small areas (and a stabilized 19.0% on a cell 0.5 square centimeters in area) as well as an electroluminescence of 3.8%. The open-circuit voltage of 1.24 volts at a band gap of 1.63 electron volts leads to a loss in potential of 0.39 volts, versus 0.4 volts for commercial silicon cells. Polymer-coated cells maintained 95% of their initial performance at 85°C for 500 hours under full illumination and maximum power point tracking.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2016/09/28/science.aah5557.full.pdf

Incorporation of rubidium cations into perovskite solar cells improves photovoltaic performance

Metal halide perovskite photovoltaic cells could potentially boost the efficiency of commercial silicon photovoltaic modules from ∼20 toward 30% when used in tandem architectures. An optimum perovskite cell optical band gap of ~1.75 electron volts (eV) can be achieved by varying halide composition, but to date, such materials have had poor photostability and thermal stability. Here we present a highly crystalline and compositionally photostable material, [HC(NH2)2](0.83)Cs(0.17)Pb(I(0.6)Br(0.4))3, with an optical band gap of ~1.74 eV, and we fabricated perovskite cells that reached open-circuit voltages of 1.2 volts and power conversion efficiency of over 17% on small areas and 14.7% on 0.715 cm(2) cells. By combining these perovskite cells with a 19%-efficient silicon cell, we demonstrated the feasibility of achieving >25%-efficient four-terminal tandem cells.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/351/6269/151.full.pdf

A mixed-cation lead mixed-halide perovskite absorber for tandem solar cells

Planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs) made entirely via solution processing at low temperatures (<150°C) offer promise for simple manufacturing, compatibility with flexible substrates, and perovskite-based tandem devices. However, these PSCs require an electron-selective layer that performs well with similar processing. We report a contact-passivation strategy using chlorine-capped TiO2 colloidal nanocrystal film that mitigates interfacial recombination and improves interface binding in low-temperature planar solar cells. We fabricated solar cells with certified efficiencies of 20.1 and 19.5% for active areas of 0.049 and 1.1 square centimeters, respectively, achieved via low-temperature solution processing. Solar cells with efficiency greater than 20% retained 90% (97% after dark recovery) of their initial performance after 500 hours of continuous room-temperature operation at their maximum power point under 1-sun illumination (where 1 sun is defined as the standard illumination at AM1.5, or 1 kilowatt/square meter).

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2017/02/01/science.aai9081.full.pdf

Efficient and stable solution-processed planar perovskite solar cells via contact passivation.

The photovoltaics of organic–inorganic lead halide perovskite materials have shown rapid improvements in solar cell performance, surpassing the top efficiency of semiconductor compounds such as CdTe and CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) used in solar cells in just about a decade. Perovskite preparation via simple and inexpensive solution processes demonstrates the immense potential of this thin-film solar cell technology to become a low-cost alternative to the presently commercially available photovoltaic technologies. Significant developments in almost all aspects of perovskite solar cells and discoveries of some fascinating properties of such hybrid perovskites have been made recently. This Review describes the fundamentals, recent research progress, present status, and our views on future prospects of perovskite-based photovoltaics, with discussions focused on strategies to improve both intrinsic and extrinsic (environmental) stabilities of high-efficiency devices. Strategies and challenges regardi...

Halide Perovskite Photovoltaics: Background, Status, and Future Prospects

Although power conversion efficiency (PCE) of state-of-the-art perovskite solar cells has already exceeded 20%, photo- and/or moisture instability of organolead halide perovskite have prevented further commercialization. In particular, the underlying weak interaction of organic cations with surrounding iodides due to eight equivalent orientations of the organic cation along the body diagonals in unit cell and chemically non-inertness of organic cation result in photo- and moisture instability of organometal halide perovskite. Here, a perovskite light absorber incorporating organic–inorganic hybrid cation in the A-site of 3D APbI3 structure with enhanced photo- and moisture stability is reported. A partial substitution of Cs+ for HC(NH2)2+ in HC(NH2)2PbI3 perovskite is found to substantially improve photo- and moisture stability along with photovoltaic performance. When 10% of HC(NH2)2+ is replaced by Cs+, photo- and moisture stability of perovskite film are significantly improved, which is attributed to the enhanced interaction between HC(NH2)2+ and iodide due to contraction of cubo-octahedral volume. Moreover, trap density is reduced by one order of magnitude upon incorporation of Cs+, which is responsible for the increased open-circuit voltage and fill factor, eventually leading to enhancement of average PCE from 14.9% to 16.5%.

Formamidinium and Cesium Hybridization for Photo- and Moisture-Stable Perovskite Solar Cell

Optimization of Al2O3/ZrO2 nanolaminate structure for thin-film encapsulation of OLEDs

We report on an extremely bendable moisture barrier for the thin-film encapsulation of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Hybrid barriers with various dyads of alternating aluminum oxide (Al2O3) and plasma-polymerized layers, which are utilizable for the thin-film encapsulation of flexible OLEDs, were prepared by atomic layer deposition and plasma chemical vapor deposition, respectively. When the total thickness of Al2O3 was fixed at 20 nm, an ultimate 200-dyad multilayer barrier showed change of less than 20% in water vapor transmission rate from its initial value of the order of 10−4 g/m2/day, even after 10 000 times of bending with a bending radius of 5 mm.

Extremely bendable thin-film encapsulation of organic light-emitting diodes

Water permeation through organic–inorganic multilayer thin films

We report on moisture permeation through ultrathin TiO2 barrier layers grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The steady-state water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) was as low as 6×10-4 g/(m2day) as determined by electrical Ca test at 60 °C and 85% relative humidity (RH). These Ca test measurement results confirmed the existence of a critical thickness at which the WVTR changes abruptly. In addition, the results revealed that the moisture permeation through the layer occurred via two distinctly different mechanisms. The time to failure of the barrier film, rather than the steady-state WVTR, was proposed in order to evaluate the barrier property more accurately.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1143/APEX.5.035701/pdf

Seung-Woo Seo

Papers

Formamidinium and Cesium Hybridization for Photo- and Moisture-Stable Perovskite Solar Cell

Optimization of Al2O3/ZrO2 nanolaminate structure for thin-film encapsulation of OLEDs

Extremely bendable thin-film encapsulation of organic light-emitting diodes

Water permeation through organic–inorganic multilayer thin films

Moisture Permeation through Ultrathin TiO2 Films Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition