Conjugated Polymers for Stable and Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells: in Search of the Perfect Match
Marina Tepliakova a b, Alexander Akkuratov b, Irina Klimovich a b, Ilya Kuznetsov b, Pavel Troshin a b
a Skoltech - Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Bolshoy Boulevard 30, Moskva, Russian Federation
b The Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences RAS, Russia, Semenov Prospect 1, Russian Federation
Proceedings of Online School on Hybrid, Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics (HOPE-PV)
Online, Spain, 2020 November 3rd - 13th
Organizers: Sergey M. Aldoshin, Jovana Milic, Keith Stevenson and Pavel Troshin
Poster, Marina Tepliakova, 044
Publication date: 23rd October 2020
ePoster: 

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) efficiency skyrocketed from 3.8% to 25.5% in less than a decade. Although the achieved PSCs efficiency is impressive, the long-term device operational stability is still a distant goal.

In recent literature, it has been shown that the hole-transport material (HTM) can improve dramatically PSCs stability in the standard n-i-p device configuration. For this purpose, the HTM should provide decent charge transport properties without additional doping, must be chemically inert towards perovskite, and have low gas permeability to prevent leakage of the perovskite decomposition products from the absorber layer. In this regard, a family of conjugated polymers is of great interest, since these are intrinsic semiconductor materials with an easily tunable structure and physicochemical properties. Multiple reports presented the design of HTMs based on conjugated polymers for PSCs with high efficiency and improved stability, though the selection of the material structures still looks purely empiric. In order to perform a rational design of polymer-based HTMs for improving the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells, some basic guidelines have to be defined.

In this work, we systematically explored a broad range of conjugated polymers as HTMs to reveal the impact of their molecular structure and properties on the PSCs performance and operational stability. The selected set of the polymers comprises materials with various backbone structures, different solubilizing side chains, and HOMO energy levels varied from -5.8 to -5.1 eV. We showed that PSCs with high efficiency of up to 18.9% can be fabricated using the best polymeric HTMs without additional doping. A systematic study of the device aging behavior within 1000 h under continuous light soaking was performed and we identified the series of polymers comprised of octyloxy-substituted benzooxadiazole and/or carbazole units enabling long-term operational stability of PSCs.

The obtained results allowed us to establish some molecular structure – photovoltaic performance – operational stability relationships, which may guide further rational deisign of polymer-based HTMs for efficient and stable perovskite photovoltaics. 

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