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Inverted perovskite solar cells with over 2,000 h operational stability at 85 °C using fixed charge passivation

Nature Energy volume 9, pages 37–46 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

High-quality defect passivation at perovskite/charge extraction layer heterojunctions in perovskite solar cells is critical to solar device operation. Here we report a ‘physical’ passivation method by producing fixed charges with aluminium oxide (negative fixed charges) or silicon oxide (positive fixed charges) interlayers grown by atomic layer deposition at perovskite/charge extraction layer heterojunctions. Through experimental and modelling approaches, we find that the fixed charge passivation (FCP) modifies carrier concentration distribution near the heterojunctions, which reduces interface recombination and photovoltage losses. The strong acidity of aluminium oxide simultaneously shields perovskites from being deprotonated by the nickel oxide at high temperatures. The optimized FCP device shows an efficiency of 22.5% with over 60 mV improvement in photovoltage in contrast to the control devices. Importantly, the encapsulated FCP devices, operated at the maximum power point, exhibit almost no efficiency loss after ageing under 1-sun illumination at 85 °C for 2,000 h in ambient air.

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Fig. 1: Device performance and carrier dynamics.
Fig. 2: Fixed charges at MOs/perovskite heterojunctions.
Fig. 3: Simulation analysis of fixed charge effects on device performance.
Fig. 4: Device characterizations and long-term stability test.

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Data supporting the findings in the present work are available in the article and Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (number 62074115) and the Special Fund of Hubei Luojia Laboratory (number 220100023). We thank P. Fang for helpful discussion. We thank the Core Facility of Wuhan University for assisting with the KPFM and SEM measurements.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Yuanhang Yang, Siyang Cheng.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Technology, Hubei Luojia Laboratory, School of Microelectronics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Yuanhang Yang, Siyang Cheng, Xueliang Zhu, Sheng Li, Zhuo Zheng, Kai Zhao, Liwei Ji, Ruiming Li, Yong Liu, Chang Liu, Qianqian Lin, Ning Yan & Zhiping Wang

  2. Van’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ning Yan

  3. Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology, Wuhan, China

    Zhiping Wang

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Contributions

Y.Y., S.C. and Z.W. conceived the idea. Y.Y. designed and conducted most of the experiments. S.C. performed the simulations and data analysis. Y.Y. and S.C. performed most measurements and analysed the data under the supervision of Z.W. X.Z. assisted with device optimization. S.L. and Z.Z. fabricated the wide-bandgap devices. K.Z. performed the mass spectrometry measurement under the supervision of N.Y. L.J. assisted with ALD under the supervision of C.L. Y.L. performed XPS measurements. R.L. performed double-injection current measurement under the supervision of Q.L. Z.W. supervised the whole project. Y.Y., S.C. and Z.W. wrote the first draft of the paper. All the authors contributed to the revision of the paper.

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Correspondence to Zhiping Wang.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–42, Notes 1–5 and Tables 1–14.

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Supplementary Data 1

Statistical source data for Supplementary Fig. 21.

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Statistical source data for Fig. 1b.

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Statistical source data for Fig. 4d.

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Yang, Y., Cheng, S., Zhu, X. et al. Inverted perovskite solar cells with over 2,000 h operational stability at 85 °C using fixed charge passivation. Nat Energy 9, 37–46 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01377-7

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