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Efficient monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar modules with small cell-to-module derate

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 923–931 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

All-perovskite tandem solar modules are promising to reduce the cost of photovoltaic systems with their high efficiency and solution fabrication, but their sensitivity to air still imposes a great challenge. Here a hot gas-assisted blading method is developed to accelerate the perovskite solidification, forming compact and thick narrow bandgap (NBG) perovskite films. Adding a reduction agent into NBG films followed by a short period of air exposure and a post-fabrication storage surprisingly increases carrier recombination lifetime and enables laser scribing in ambient conditions without obvious loss of device performance. This combination suppresses tin and iodide oxidation and forms a thin SnO2 layer on the NBG film surface. Monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar modules showed a champion efficiency of 21.6% with a 14.3 cm2 aperture area, corresponding to an active area efficiency of 23.0%. The very small cell-to-module derate of 6.5% demonstrates the advantage of a tandem monolithic structure for solar modules.

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Fig. 1: Blade coating 1,000 nm thick NBG perovskite films.
Fig. 2: Single-junction NBG solar cell performance.
Fig. 3: Unveiling the mechanism of performance enhancement by air exposure and storage.
Fig. 4: All-perovskite tandem solar cell and module performance.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the published article and its Supplementary Information and source data files. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This material and device development was mainly supported by Defense Threat Reduction Agency under grant HDTRA1-19-1-0024. We thank the financial support from National Science Foundation under award DMR-1903981 and ECCS-1542015 for material characterizations. The device characterization was supported in part by the Solar Energy Technologies office within the US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, under award number DE-EE0008749. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the federal government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physical Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Xuezeng Dai, Shangshang Chen, Haoyang Jiao, Liang Zhao, Zhenyi Ni, Zhenhua Yu, Bo Chen & Jinsong Huang

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Ke Wang & Yongli Gao

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jinsong Huang

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  1. Xuezeng Dai
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Contributions

J.H. conceived the project. X.D. designed the experiments and conducted the device fabrication and most of the characterizations. S.C. helped in introducing the reduction agent. K.W. and Y.G. performed the XPS measurements. H.J. and L.Z. conducted the XRD measurement. Z.N. helped on the DLCP characterization. Z.Y. contributed to the composition of NBG perovskite. B.C. helped on the long-term stability tests. X.D. and J.H. wrote the paper, and all authors reviewed the paper.

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Correspondence to Jinsong Huang.

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Nature Energy thanks Shuzi Hayase and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Dai, X., Chen, S., Jiao, H. et al. Efficient monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar modules with small cell-to-module derate. Nat Energy 7, 923–931 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01102-w

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