Reducing Energy Disorder in Perovskite Solar Cells by Chelation

Yiting Jiang, Jiabin Wang, Huachao Zai, Dongyuan Ni, Jiayu Wang, Peiyao Xue, Nengxu Li, Boyu Jia, Huanjun Lu, Yu Zhang, Feng Wang, Zhenyu Guo, Zhaozhao Bi, Haipeng Xie, Qian Wang, Wei Ma, Yingfeng Tu*, Huanping Zhou*, Xiaowei Zhan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs), the fullerene derivative [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) is a widely used electron transport material. However, a high degree of energy disorder and inadequate passivation of PCBM limit the efficiency of devices, and severe self-aggregation and unstable morphology limit the lifespan of devices. Here, we design a series of fullerene dyads FP-Cn (n = 4, 8, 12) to replace PCBM as an electron transport layer, where [60]fullerene is linked with a terpyridine chelating group via a flexible alkyl chain of different lengths as a spacer. Among three fullerene dyads, FP-C8 shows the most enhanced molecule ordering and adhesion with the perovskite surface due to the balanced decoupling between the chelation effect from terpyridine and the self-assembly of fullerene, leading to lower energy disorder and higher morphological stability relative to PCBM. The FP-C8/C60-based devices using Cs0.05FA0.90MA0.05PbI2.85Br0.15as a light absorber show a power conversion efficiency of 21.69%, higher than that of PCBM/C60 (20.09%), benefiting from improved electron extraction and transport as well as reduced charge recombination loss. When employing FAPbI3as a light absorber, the FP-C8/C60-based devices exhibit an efficiency of 23.08%, which is the champion value of inverted PSCs with solution-processed fullerene derivatives. Moreover, the FP-C8/C60-based devices show better moisture and thermal stability than PCBM/C60-based devices and maintain 96% of their original efficiency after 1200 h of operation, while their counterpart PCBM/C60 maintains 60% after 670 h.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5400-5410
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of the American Chemical Society
Volume144
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Mar 2022
Externally publishedYes

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