An Analysis of Carrier Dynamics in Methylammonium Lead Triiodide Perovskite Solar Cells Using Cross Correlation Noise Spectroscopy

Using cross correlation current noise spectroscopy, we have investigated carrier dynamics in methylammonium lead triiodide solar cells. This method provides space selectivity for devices with a planar multi-layered structure, effectively amplifying current noise contributions coming from the most resistive element of the stack. In the studied solar cells, we observe near full-scale shot noise, indicating the dominance of noise generation by a single source, likely the interface between the perovskite and the spiro-organic 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenyl-amine)9,9′-spirobifluorene hole-transport layer. We argue that the strong 1/f noise term has contributions from both the perovskite layer and interfaces. It displays a non-ideal dependence on photocurrent, S ∝ I 1.4 (instead of usual S ∝ I 2), which is likely due to current-induced halide migration. Finally, we observe generation-recombination noise. We argue that this contribution is due to bimolecular recombination in the perovskite bulk absorption layer. Extrapolating our results, we estimate that at standard 1 sun illumination, the electron-hole recombination time is 5 μs.