Carbon Nanotube Based Inverted Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells with All‐Inorganic Charge Contacts

• Published in: Advanced functional materials 2017-11, Vol.27 (42), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Luo, Qiang, Ma, He, Hao, Feng, Hou, Qinzhi, Ren, Jing, Wu, Lili, Yao, Zhibo, Zhou, Yu, Wang, Ning, Jiang, Kaili, Lin, Hong, Guo, Zhanhu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aluminum oxide; Carbon nanotubes; Cathodes; charge extracting materials; Commercialization; Devices; Electrode materials; Electron transport; Energy conversion efficiency; Gold; Materials science; Organolead compounds; perovskite solar cells; Photovoltaic cells; Silver; Solar cells; stabilities; Stability; Substrates; Tin dioxide
• ISSN: 1616-301X; 1616-3028
• DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201703068

Organolead halide perovskite solar cells (PSC) are arising as promising candidates for next‐generation renewable energy conversion devices. Currently, inverted PSCs typically employ expensive organic semiconductor as electron transport material and thermally deposited metal as cathode (such as Ag, Au, or Al), which are incompatible with their large‐scale production. Moreover, the use of metal cathode also limits the long‐term device stability under normal operation conditions. Herein, a novel inverted PSC employs a SnO2‐coated carbon nanotube (SnO2@CSCNT) film as cathode in both rigid and flexible substrates (substrate/NiO‐perovskite/Al2O3‐perovskite/SnO2@CSCNT‐perovskite). Inverted PSCs with SnO2@CSCNT cathode exhibit considerable enhancement in photovoltaic performance in comparison with the devices without SnO2 coating owing to the significantly reduced charge recombination. As a result, a power conversion efficiency of 14.3% can be obtained on rigid substrates while the flexible ones achieve 10.5% efficiency. More importantly, SnO2@CSCNT‐based inverted PSCs exhibit significantly improved stability compared to the standard inverted devices made with silver cathode, retaining over 88% of their original efficiencies after 550 h of full light soaking or thermal stress. The results indicate that SnO2@CSCNT is a promising cathode material for long‐term device operation and pave the way toward realistic commercialization of flexible PSCs. A novel, thermal‐ and photostable inverted perovskite solar cell is developed, employing a SnO2‐coated carbon nanotube film as cathode (substrate/NiO‐perovskite/Al2O3‐perovskite/SnO 2@CSCNT‐perovskite). The deposition of the electron‐extracting SnO2 on the CSCNT cathode increases device efficiencies, eliminates device hysteresis, and suppresses charge combination. Solar cells fabricated with SnO2@CSCNT cathodes show power conversion efficiencies of 14.3 and 10.5% on rigid and flexible substrates, respectively.