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Minimum doping densities for p–n junctions

Nature Energy volume 5, pages 973–975 (2020)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 04 February 2019

arising from Peng Cui et al. Nature Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0324-8 (2019)

In their Article, Cui et al.1 describe the fabrication and characterization of planar p–n junction solar cells based on lead-halide perovskites. The formation of a p–n junction is noteworthy given the doping densities, measured using the Hall effect, which were reported to vary from ND = 1 × 1012 cm−3 to 8 × 1012 cm−3 for the solution-processed n-type layer and to equal NA = 8 × 109 cm−3 for the evaporated p-type layer. Although these devices outperform their counterparts that are supposedly undoped, the results raise three important questions. Are the reported doping densities high enough to change the electrostatic potential distribution in the device from that of undoped ones? Are the doping densities high enough for the p–n junction to remain intact under typical photovoltaic operation conditions? Is a p–n junction beneficial for photovoltaic performance given the typical properties of lead-halide perovskites.

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Fig. 1: Effect of doping on the band diagram of halide perovskite solar cells.
Fig. 2: Effect of doping on the photovoltaic parameters of perovskite solar cells.

Data availability

All data used for the arguments are shown in the main paper or in the Supplementary Information file. The parameters for the simulations are given in Table 1.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IEK5-Photovoltaik, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany

    Thomas Kirchartz

  2. Faculty of Engineering and CENIDE, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

    Thomas Kirchartz

  3. Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovoth, Israel

    David Cahen

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  1. Thomas Kirchartz
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  2. David Cahen
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Contributions

T.K. performed the simulations, all quantitative comparisons and wrote most of the manuscript. D.C. initiated the work and wrote the last part of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Thomas Kirchartz.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–4.

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Kirchartz, T., Cahen, D. Minimum doping densities for p–n junctions. Nat Energy 5, 973–975 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00708-2

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