A team of researchers at MIT (along with colleagues from South Korea and Georgia) has developed a new approach to the design of perovskite cells by adding a specially treated conductive layer of tin dioxide bonded to the perovskite material, which provides an improved path for the charge carriers in the cell. By also modifying the perovskite formula, the researchers have reportedly boosted its overall efficiency as a solar cell to an impressive 25.2%.
On top of many other attractive properties, perovskites have a higher bandgap than silicon, which means they absorb a different part of the light spectrum and thus can complement silicon cells to provide even greater combined efficiencies. But even using only perovskite, MIT's Jason Yoo says, 'what we're demonstrating is that even with a single active layer, we can make efficiencies that threaten silicon, and hopefully within punching distance of gallium arsenide. And both of those technologies have been around for much longer than perovskites have.'
This middle electron transport layer, and especially the interfaces where it connects to the layers on each side of it, tend to be where inefficiencies occur. By studying these mechanisms and designing a layer, consisting of tin oxide, that more perfectly conforms with those adjacent to it, the researchers were able to greatly reduce the losses.
The method they used is called chemical bath deposition. 'It's like slow cooking in a Crock-Pot,' Professor Moungi Bawendi says. With a bath at 90 degrees Celsius, precursor chemicals slowly decompose to form the layer of tin dioxide in place. 'The team realized that if we understood the decomposition mechanisms of these precursors, then we'd have a better understanding of how these films form. We were able to find the right window in which the electron transport layer with ideal properties can be synthesized.'
After a series of controlled experiments, they found that different mixtures of intermediate compounds would form, depending on the acidity of the precursor solution. They also identified a sweet spot of precursor compositions that allowed the reaction to produce a much more effective film.
The researchers combined these steps with an optimization of the perovskite layer itself. They used a set of additives to the perovskite recipe to improve its stability, which had been tried before but had an undesired effect on the material's bandgap, making it a less efficient light absorber. The team found that by adding much smaller amounts of these additives ' less than 1 percent ' they could still get the beneficial effects without altering the bandgap.
The resulting improvement in efficiency has already driven the material to over 80% of the theoretical maximum efficiency that such materials could have, Yoo says.
While these high efficiencies were demonstrated in tiny lab-scale devices, Bawendi says that 'the kind of insights we provide in this paper, and some of the tricks we provide, could potentially be applied to the methods that people are now developing for large-scale, manufacturable perovskite cells, and therefore boost those efficiencies.'
In pursuing the research further, there are two important avenues: to continue pushing the limits on better efficiency, and to focus on increasing the material's long-term stability, which currently is measured in months, compared to decades for silicon cells. But for some purposes, Bawendi points out, longevity may not be so essential. Many electronic devices such as cellphones, for example, tend to be replaced within a few years anyway, so there may be some useful applications even for relatively short-lived solar cells.
'I don't think we're there yet with these cells, even for these kind of shorter-term applications,' he says. 'But people are getting close, so combining our ideas in this paper with ideas that other people have with increasing stability could lead to something really interesting.'
Robert Hoye, a lecturer in materials at Imperial College London, who was not part of the study, says, 'This is excellent work by an international team.' He adds, 'This could lead to greater reproducibility and the excellent device efficiencies achieved in the lab translating to commercialized modules. In terms of scientific milestones, not only do they achieve an efficiency that was the certified record for perovskite solar cells for much of last year, they also achieve open-circuit voltages up to 97% of the radiative limit. This is an astonishing achievement for solar cells grown from solution.'
