Abstract
Electron-selective layers (ESLs) and hole-selective layers (HSLs) are critical in high-efficiency organic-inorganic lead halide perovskite (PS) solar cells for charge-carrier transport, separation, and collection. We developed a procedure to assess the quality of the ESL/PS junction by measuring potential distribution on the cross section of SnO2-based PS solar cells using Kelvin probe force microscopy. Using the potential profiling, we compared three types of cells made of different ESLs but otherwise having an identical device structure: (1) cells with PS deposited directly on bare fluorine-doped SnO2 (FTO)-coated glass; (2) cells with an intrinsic SnO2 thin layer on the top of FTO as an effective ESL; and (3) cells with the SnO2 ESL and adding a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of fullerene. The results reveal two major potential drops or electric fields at the ESL/PS and PS/HSL interfaces. The electric-field ratio between the ESL/PS and PS/HSL interfaces increased in devices as follows: FTO < SnO2-ESL < SnO2 + SAM; this sequence explains the improvements of the fill factor (FF) and open-circuit voltage (Voc). The improvement of the FF from the FTO to SnO2-ESL cells may result from the reduction in voltage loss at the PS/HSL back interface and the improvement of Voc from the prevention of hole recombination at the ESL/PS front interface. The further improvements with adding an SAM is caused by the defect passivation at the ESL/PS interface, and hence, improvement of the junction quality. These nanoelectrical findings suggest possibilities for improving the device performance by further optimizing the SnO2-based ESL material quality and the ESL/PS interface.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 38373-38380 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 44 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 8 Nov 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 American Chemical Society.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5K00-67770
Keywords
- electron-selective layer
- interface
- junction quality
- Kelvin probe force microscopy
- nanometer-scale
- perovskite solar cell
- potential profile