Organic Salt as Hole Transporting Material in Mixed Halide Perovskite Solar Cells

Raja Bhaskar Kanth Siram1 and Boris Rybtchinski2
1Dr, 2Prof


Abstract

Perovskite solar cells have recently become a focus of interest because they can potentially be fabricated as lightweight flexible coatings over large-area flexible substrates using low cost solution processing techniques. The high open circuit voltage (VOC) of a perovskite solar cell depends on the energy difference between work function of TiO2 and valence band of hole transporting layer (HTL). Recently, Ryu et al.,[1] reported the VOC of 1.40 V by using methylammonium lead bromide (MAPbBr3) perovskite on mesoporous TiO2 scaffold with deep-highly occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) organic polymer, PIF8-TAA (HOMO=-5.51 eV) as HTL, whereas VOC of 1.29 V is obtained by Poly[bis(4-phenyl)(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl) amine] (PTAA) polymer, which has the HOMO of -5.14eV. In the latter case, maximum VOC of 1.29 V is observed which is contrary to the theory that VOC should not be exceed the energy difference between work function of TiO2 and HOMO of PTAA. So, to study the role of HTL, we have fabricated perovskite solar cells with a simple organic salt used as HTL. The device architecture in our study is FTO/bl-TiO2/Mixed halide Perovskite/HTL/Au. MAPbBrxCl3-x Perovskite is deposited on bl-TiO2 layer by spin coating the solution of PbCl2 mixed with methylammonium bromide (MABr) in 1:3 ratio in DMF. Different concentrations of organic salt solution are deposited on the perovskite layer. The perovskite film is stable without diffusing the counter ions of salt into the perovskite layer which is confirmed by powder XRD. The valence band of the perovskite is calculated from the ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) measurements. The fabricated devices are characterized by J-V measurements under illumination of air mass 1.5 and high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.34% with VOC of 1.21 V, current density (JSC) of 6.32 mA/cm2, and fill factor (FF) of 57% have obtained. Without HTL, the characteristics are VOC=0.82 V, JSC=1.62 mA/cm2, and FF=48% with PCE=0.64. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectrum of devices with salt as HTL reveals almost 55% incident photon to current efficiency. These results indicate that a polar material that has a good charge transporting nature may act as HTL in methylammonium lead bromo chloride perovskite cells. Ref:- 1. Ryu, S.; Noh, J. H.; Jeon, N. J.; Kim, Y. C.; Yang, W. S.; Seo, J.; Seok, S. Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, 7, 2614.