Recent advances of Cu-based hole transport materials and their interface engineering concerning different processing methods in perovskite solar cells

In recent years, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have become a much charming photovoltaic technology and have triggered enormous studies worldwide, owing to their high efficiency, low cost and ease of preparation. The power conversion efficiency has rapidly increased by more than 6 times to the current 25.5% in the past decade. Hole transport materials (HTMs) are an indispensable part of PSCs, which great affect the efficiency, the cost and the stability of PSCs. Inorganic Cu-based p-type semiconductors are a kind of representative inorganic HTMs in PSCs due to their unique advantages of rich variety, low cost, excellent hole mobility, adjustable energy levels, good stability, low temperature and scalable processing ability. In this review, the research progress in new materials and the control of photoelectric properties of Cu-based inorganic HTMs were first summarized systematically. And then, concerning different processing methods, advances of the interface engineering of Cu-based hole transport layers (HTLs) in PSCs were detailly discussed. Finally, the challenges and future trends of Cu-based inorganic HTMs and their interface engineering in PSCs were analyzed.

High efficiency ETM-free perovskite cell composed of CuSCN and increasing gradient CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3)

To enhance device performance and reduce fabrication cost,a series of electron transporting material(ETM)-free perovskite solar cells(PSCs)is developed by TCAD Atlas.The accuracy of the physical mode of PSCs is verified,due to the simulations of PEDOT:PSS-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3)-PCBM and CuSCN-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3)-PCBM p-i-n PSCs showing a good agreement with experimental results.Different hole transporting materials(HTMs)are selected and directly combined with n-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3),and the CuSCN-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3) is the best in these ETM-free PSCs.To further study the CuSCN-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3) PSC,the influences of back electrode material,gradient band gap,thickness,doping concentration,and bulk defect density on the performance are investigated.Energy band and distribution of electric field are utilized to optimize the design.As a result,the efficiency of CuSCN-CH_(3)NH_(3)PbI_(3) PSC is achieved to be 26.64%.This study provides the guideline for designing and improving the performances of ETM-free PSCs.