Publication date: 4th October 2024
Recently, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted worldwide attention because the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PSCs have drastically increased from 3.8% to over 26% [1]. The inverted p-i-n planar PSCs have gained significant traction due to its better compatibility to high throughput manufacturing processes. Currently, C60 and its derivatives are used as electron transport material (ETM) in most high efficiency p-i-n PSCs. However, these materials have several disadvantages such as high cost, low solubility, and weakness to sputter damage, hindering their commercial application [2]. The n-type metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) - such as SnO2, TiO2, and ZnO - have been investigated as ETMs for the p-i-n PSCs to some extent. However, it is difficult to balance the dispersibility of NPs and the suppression of the damage to the underlying perovskite layer. In this study, we synthesized the SnO2 NPs in alcohol solvents, which can suppress the damage to the perovskite layer, and demonstrate that SnO2 NPs can be directly deposited on the perovskite layer.
We prepared the 2 wt% SnO2 NPs dispersion in alcohol solvent, with a size of single nanometer. We also used the commercial SnO2 ink A (SnO2 2.5 wt% in n-butanol solution purchased from Avantama) and ink B (SnO2 40 wt% in acetic acid solution purchased from Sofab Inks, diluted with 2-propanol to 2 wt%) as a reference. We fabricated the inverted PSCs with the device structure of glass/ITO/hole transport materials /perovskite/passivation layer/SnO2/Ag. The SnO2 layer was spin-coated on top of perovskite layer and heated on the hot plate. The photocurrent density-voltage (J-V) curves of the PSC were measured under AM 1.5G, 100 mW/cm2 illumination. The uniformity of the SnO2 layer and the damage of the perovskite surface were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM).
Figure (a) shows the J-V curves of the best-performing devices obtained with different SnO2 NPs inks. Though the PCE values of the PSCs using the commercial SnO2 NPs inks were relatively low (9.6% for the commercial ink A, and 0.3% for the commercial ink B), we attained the PCE value of 15.3% for the SnO2 NPs ink which we synthesized. Figure (b) shows the cross-sectional SEM image of the full device using our SnO2 NPs ink. Approximately 50-nm-thick SnO2 film was uniformly formed on the perovskite layer, and there was no observable damage to the perovskite thin film. The detailed explanation will be further discussed.
This work was based on results obtained from a project, JPNP21016, subsidized by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
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