Defect passivation by nontoxic biomaterial yields 21% efficiency perovskite solar cells

Defect passivation is one of the most important strategies to boost both the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells(PSCs).Here,nontoxic and sustainable forest-based biomaterial,betulin,is first introduced into perovskites.The experiments and calculations reveal that betulin can effectively passivate the uncoordinated lead ions in perovskites via sharing the lone pair electrons of hydroxyl group,promoting charge transport.As a result,the power conversion efficiencies of the p-i-n planar PSCs remarkably increase from 19.14%to 21.15%,with the improvement of other parameters.The hydrogen bonds of betulin lock methylamine and halogen ions along the grain boundaries and on the film surface and thus suppress ion migration,further stabilizing perovskite crystal structures.These positive effects enable the PSCs to maintain 90%of the initial efficiency after 30 days in ambient air with 60%±5%relative humidity,75%after 300 h aging at 85℃,and 55%after 250 h light soaking,respectively.This work opens a new pathway for using nontoxic and low-cost biomaterials from forest to make highly efficient and stable PSCs.

Photophysics, morphology and device performances correlation on non-fullerene acceptor based binary and ternary solar cells

Non-fullerene acceptor(NFA) based organic solar cells(OSCs) are of high efficiency and low energy loss and low recombination features, which is owing to the advantage of non-fullerene acceptors. The photophysics investigation of non-fullerene solar cells, in comparing to fullerene based analogue as well as mixed acceptor ternary blends could help to understand the working mechanism of NFA functioning mechanism. We choose PBDB-T donor, the fullerene derivative PC71 BM acceptor, and the non-fullerene acceptor ITIC as the model system, to construct binary and ternary solar cells, which then subject to ultrafast spectroscopy investigation. The charge transfer pathway in binary and ternary blends is revealed.And it is seen that ITIC leads to a faster exciton separation and exciton diffusion. ITIC in blends suppresses the geminate recombination and shows smaller amount of charge transfer states, which is beneficial for the device performance. And the addition of ITIC enhances the crystallinity for both donor and acceptor leads to a morphology change of forming bicontinuous crystalline networks and phase separation. In a consequence, fill factor and JSC, increase dramatically for the related OSC.

Investigating the reason for high FF from ternary organic solar cells

Organic solar cells(OSCs)have attracted huge attention because of their unique merits[1−3].In last few years,thanks to the design of new materials and device engineering,the power conversion efficiencies(PCEs)of OSCs have surpassed 18%[4−8].The PM6:Y6 cells are efficient binary cells,offering high PCEs over 16%[9−11].The high performance originates from the efficient free charge generation and the ground state dipole field at the donor-acceptor interface that promotes the exciton dissociation[12].

The structure-performance correlation of bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells with multi-length-scale morphology

We build a general multi-length-scale morphology model with mixing phase and pure phase fibril structure,and simulate corresponding organic solar cells performance.Systematical multi-length-scale morphology optimization process by changing the proportion of mixing phase and pure phase in different period width cases shows a clear correlation between period width and device performance that a smaller period width with appropriate proportion of mixing phase and fibril structure is advantageous to achieve high-performance devices.Experiments on multiple donor/acceptor blends have been carried out by varying the composition and processing condition,which afford good structure-performance correlation that supports the model prediction.It is demonstrated that building such a multi-length-scale morphology merging the synergistic effects of mixing and pure phases is indeed an imperative avenue to improve device efficiency.

Design Rules of the Mixing Phase and Impacts on Device Performance in High-Efficiency Organic Photovoltaics

In nonfullerene acceptor-(NFA-)based solar cells,the exciton splitting takes place at both domain interface and donor/acceptor mixture,which brings in the state of mixing phase into focus.The energetics and morphology are key parameters dictating the charge generation,diffusion,and recombination.It is revealed that tailoringthe electronic properties of the mixing region by doping with larger-bandgap components could reduce the density of state but elevate the filling state level,leading to improved open-circuit voltage(V_(OC))and reduced recombination.The monomolecular and bimolecular recombinations are shown to be intercorrelated,which show a Gaussian-like relationship with V_(OC) and linear relationship with short-circuit current density(JSC)and fill factor(FF).The kinetics of hole transfer and exciton diffusion scale with JSC similarly,indicating the carrier generation in mixing region and crystalline domain are equally important.From the morphology perspective,the crystalline order could contribute to V_(OC) improvement,and the fibrillar structure strongly affects the FF.These observations highlight the importance of the mixing region and its connection with crystalline domains and point out the design rules to optimize the mixing phase structure,which is an effective approach to further improve device performance.