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Large-area perovskite solar cells employing spiro-Naph hole transport material

Nature Photonics volume 16, pages 119–125 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Stabilizing the best-performing state-of-the-art perovskite solar cells (PSCs) based on a spiro-OMeTAD hole transport material (HTM), without sacrificing their high power conversion efficiency (PCE) levels, is a challenging task. By exploiting the symmetry-tuned strategy at the molecular level, we have developed spiro-OMeTAD analogues (namely, the spiro-Naph series) with asymmetric phenylnaphthylamine edge units. The new spiro-Naph HTM-based PSC achieved a high PCE of 24.43%, higher than that achieved with spiro-OMeTAD. In addition to excellent stability when soaking the encapsulated device with continuous light, superior device stability was also obtained for the unencapsulated spiro-Naph-based PSC—a PCE of 21.12% was retained in air with ~25% relative humidity after 2,000 h and a PCE of 18.79% was retained at an elevated temperature of 60 °C after 400 h. We also constructed a spiro-Naph-based large-area module (25 cm2) with a PCE of 21.83%.

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Fig. 1: Structures and optical and electrochemical properties of the HTMs.
Fig. 2: Thermal characteristics and charge carrier dynamics.
Fig. 3: Photovoltaic performances.
Fig. 4: Stability measurements and molecular simulations.
Fig. 5: Fabrication of a large-area PSC module.

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Data availability

All relevant data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP; 2021R1A2C3004202), the Wearable Platform Materials Technology Center (2016R1A5A1009926) funded by the Korean Government (MSIT), the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2020M1A2A2080746), and the Research Project funded by Ulsan City (1.210058.01) of UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology), Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea government (MOTIE) (20193091010460, Development of Super Solar cells for overcoming the theoretical limit of silicon solar cell efficiency (>30%)), the Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER; C1-2401 and C1-2402).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Mingyu Jeong, In Woo Choi, Kanghoon Yim, Seonghun Jeong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy Engineering, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Perovtronics Research Center, Low Dimensional Carbon Materials Center, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    Mingyu Jeong, Seonghun Jeong, Yongjoon Cho, So-Huei Kang & Changduk Yang

  2. Ulsan Advanced Energy Technology R&D Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    In Woo Choi, Minjin Kim, Seung Ju Choi, Jeong-Ho An, Hak-Beom Kim, Yimhyun Jo & Dong Suk Kim

  3. School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea

    In Woo Choi & Jin-Hyuk Bae

  4. Platform Technology Laboratory, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Kanghoon Yim & Chan-Woo Lee

  5. School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea

    Jin-Hyuk Bae

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Contributions

C.Y., D.S.K. and C.-W.L. conceptualized and supervised the project. J.-H.B. advised on the research. M.J. and S.J. synthesized and characterized the HTM materials. I.W.C. fabricated and characterized the perovskite films and solar cells and carried out the stability test. K.Y. performed the molecular simulations. M.K. performed the SCLC measurements. S.J.C. and Y.J. carried out TRPL measurements. Y.C. performed contact angle measurements. J.-H.A. carried out conductivity measurements. H.-B.K. fabricated the large-area module. S.-H.K. performed the NMR measurements. C.Y., D.S.K. and M.J. wrote the manuscript and all authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chan-Woo Lee, Dong Suk Kim or Changduk Yang.

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Nature Photonics thanks Nazario Martin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–31 and Tables 1–5.

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Perovskite solar module PCE measurement video.

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Jeong, M., Choi, I.W., Yim, K. et al. Large-area perovskite solar cells employing spiro-Naph hole transport material. Nat. Photon. 16, 119–125 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00931-7

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