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Surface passivation of perovskite film for efficient solar cells

Nature Photonics volume 13, pages 460–466 (2019)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 08 May 2019

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Abstract

In recent years, the power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells has increased to reach over 20%. Finding an effective means of defect passivation is thought to be a promising route for bringing further increases in the power conversion efficiency and the open-circuit voltage (VOC) of perovskite solar cells. Here, we report the use of an organic halide salt phenethylammonium iodide (PEAI) on HC(NH2)2–CH3NH3 mixed perovskite films for surface defect passivation. We find that PEAI can form on the perovskite surface and results in higher-efficiency cells by reducing the defects and suppressing non-radiative recombination. As a result, planar perovskite solar cells with a certificated efficiency of 23.32% (quasi-steady state) are obtained. In addition, a VOC as high as 1.18 V is achieved at the absorption threshold of 1.53 eV, which is 94.4% of the Shockley–Queisser limit VOC (1.25 V).

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Fig. 1: Device structure, possible passivation mechanism and states of PEAI on the perovskite surface.
Fig. 2: Surface passivation of perovskite layer by PEAI.
Fig. 3: Device performance.
Fig. 4: Characterization of the devices.
Fig. 5: Thermal stability of the devices.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Change history

  • 08 May 2019

    An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 61634001 and 61574133), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number 2016YFB0700700), the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (grant numbers Z181100004718005 and Z181100005118002) and also by the National 1000 Young Talents awards. We thank Y. S. Liu from Nankai University for helping with the transit photovoltage and photocurrent characterizations, and C. Y. Zhou from Enlitech for helping with the photoluminescence mapping measurement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Qi Jiang, Yang Zhao, Xingwang Zhang, Xiaolei Yang, Yong Chen, Zema Chu, Qiufeng Ye, Xingxing Li, Zhigang Yin & Jingbi You

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Qi Jiang, Yang Zhao, Xingwang Zhang, Yong Chen, Zema Chu, Qiufeng Ye, Xingxing Li, Zhigang Yin & Jingbi You

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  1. Qi Jiang
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Contributions

J.Y. conceived the idea, directed and supervised the project. Q.J. initialized this project, fabricated and characterized the devices. Y.Z. took part in the device fabrication and characterizations. X.Z., X.Y., C.Y., Z.C., Q.Y., X.L. and Z.Y. were involved in the data analysis. J.Y., J.Q., Y.Z. and X.Z. co-wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to discussions and to finalizing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jingbi You.

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Morphology analysis, photoluminescence lifetimes and certificate of operation.

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Jiang, Q., Zhao, Y., Zhang, X. et al. Surface passivation of perovskite film for efficient solar cells. Nat. Photonics 13, 460–466 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0398-2

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