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Multifunctional entinostat enhances the mechanical robustness and efficiency of flexible perovskite solar cells and minimodules

Nature Photonics volume 18, pages 379–387 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Flexible perovskite solar cells have attracted substantial attention owing to their promises for soft and high power–weight compatibility. However, the inferior quality of the buried perovskite–substrate interface due to low interfacial adhesion and large deformation of flexible substrates have greatly limited the performance of flexible perovskite solar cells. Here we add the organic molecule entinostat into the hole extraction material poly(bis(4-phenyl)(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)amine) to enhance adhesion at the perovskite–substrate interface using the interaction of entinostat with perovskites, poly(bis(4-phenyl)(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)amine) and indium tin oxide through its multiple functional groups. In addition, entinostat reduces the density of voids at the bottom of the perovskite film owing to its capability to tune the crystallization of perovskites. We demonstrate inverted small-area flexible perovskite solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of 23.4%. Flexible perovskite minimodules with an area of 9 cm2 achieve a certified aperture efficiency of ~19.0%. The optimized unencapsulated flexible minimodule retains 84% of its initial efficiency after 5,000 bending cycles and 90% of the initial power conversion efficiency after light soaking for >750 h.

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Fig. 1: Functions of ET in PTAA and perovskite layer.
Fig. 2: Perovskite film and device characterization.
Fig. 3: F-PSC performance.
Fig. 4: Efficiency, mechanical durability and light-soaking stability of flexible perovskite minimodules.

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All relevant data supporting the findings of this study are available within the Article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was mainly supported by the Office of Naval Research under award N6833522C0122. Part of the material characterization is supported by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Solar Energy Technologies Office award no. DE-EE0009520. The DFT calculation is supported by the Center for Hybrid Organic Inorganic Semiconductors for Energy (CHOISE), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science within the US Department of Energy. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Energy or the United States Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Wenzhan Xu, Zhifang Shi, Hangyu Gu, Chengbin Fei, Nengxu Li, Md Aslam Uddin, Hengkai Zhang & Jinsong Huang

  2. Perotech Inc, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Bo Chen, Zhao Zhang & Ye Liu

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

    Yeming Xian, Xiaoming Wang & Yanfa Yan

  4. Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Letian Dou

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

    Jinsong Huang

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  1. Wenzhan Xu
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Contributions

J.H. and W.X. conceived the idea. W.X. conducted the device fabrication and measurement. Z.Z., B.C. and W.X. optimized the laser scribing process. Z.S. measured the FTIR. Y.X., X.W. and Y.Y. performed the DFT calculations. Y.L. and M.A.U. optimized the partial perovskite solution. H.G. carried out the partial (mini)module encapsulation and polydimethylsiloxane synthesis. C.F. and W.X. performed the time-resolved PL studies. N.L. conducted the partial SEM measurements. H.Z., W.X. and L.D. performed the XRD measurements and participated in the data analysis and discussion. W.X. and J.H. wrote the paper, and all authors reviewed the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jinsong Huang.

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Competing interests

J.H. has equity ownership in and serves on the board of directors of Perotech. Tandem PV has a license for the following technologies used or evaluated in this paper: an ink formulation for fast coating of perovskites and BHC for reducing iodine. J.H. is an inventor of the technologies and has or could receive royalties. These relationships have been disclosed to and are under management by UNC-Chapel Hill.

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Nature Photonics thanks Aldo Di Carlo and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–21 and Tables 1–3.

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Supplementary Video 1

Inward-bending movement of the flexible perovskite minimodule.

Supplementary Video 2

Outward-bending movement of the flexible perovskite minimodule.

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Statistical source data.

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Xu, W., Chen, B., Zhang, Z. et al. Multifunctional entinostat enhances the mechanical robustness and efficiency of flexible perovskite solar cells and minimodules. Nat. Photon. 18, 379–387 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01373-z

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