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Improved air stability of perovskite solar cells via solution-processed metal oxide transport layers

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 75–81 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Lead halide perovskite solar cells have recently attracted tremendous attention because of their excellent photovoltaic efficiencies. However, the poor stability of both the perovskite material and the charge transport layers has so far prevented the fabrication of devices that can withstand sustained operation under normal conditions. Here, we report a solution-processed lead halide perovskite solar cell that has p-type NiOx and n-type ZnO nanoparticles as hole and electron transport layers, respectively, and shows improved stability against water and oxygen degradation when compared with devices with organic charge transport layers. Our cells have a p–i–n structure (glass/indium tin oxide/NiOx/perovskite/ZnO/Al), in which the ZnO layer isolates the perovskite and Al layers, thus preventing degradation. After 60 days storage in air at room temperature, our all-metal-oxide devices retain about 90% of their original efficiency, unlike control devices made with organic transport layers, which undergo a complete degradation after just 5 days. The initial power conversion efficiency of our devices is 14.6 ± 1.5%, with an uncertified maximum value of 16.1%.

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Figure 1: Morphology of solution-processed metal oxides.
Figure 2: Electronic states of the NiOx and ZnO nanoparticle films.
Figure 3: Charge transport properties of the metal oxide and perovskite, with corresponding device structure.
Figure 4: Morphology of perovskite film and device.
Figure 5: Device performance of metal-oxide-based perovskite solar cells (glass/ITO/NiOx/CH3NH3PbI3/ZnO/Al).
Figure 6: Stability of the devices in an ambient environment without encapsulation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported financially by a grant from the National Science Foundation (ECCS-1202231) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-12-1-0074). T.F.G. acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan ROC (MOST 103-2119-M-006-020 and MOST 102-2628-M-006-001-MY3). The authors thank E. Zhu and Y. Li for TEM measurement, S. Adam for help with SKPM measurements and Y.S. Rim for discussions regarding NiOx synthesis. The authors also thank G. Li for discussions and E. Young for proof reading.

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  1. Jingbi You and Lei Meng: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Jingbi You, Lei Meng, Tze-Bin Song, Yang (Michael) Yang, Wei-Hsuan Chang, Ziruo Hong, Huajun Chen, Huanping Zhou, Qi Chen, Yongsheng Liu, Nicholas De Marco & Yang Yang

  2. Department of Photonics, Advanced Optoelectronic Technology Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 701, Taiwan, ROC

    Tzung-Fang Guo

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Contributions

J.Y. and Y.Y. designed the experiments. J.Y. and L.M. performed device fabrication and data analysis. T.Z.S., H.C., Y.(M.)Y., W.H.C., H.Z., Q.C., Y.S.L. and N.D.M. contributed materials/analysis tools. T.F.G. commented on the project. J.Y., L.M. and Y.Y. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yang Yang.

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You, J., Meng, L., Song, TB. et al. Improved air stability of perovskite solar cells via solution-processed metal oxide transport layers. Nature Nanotech 11, 75–81 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.230

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