Carbon-sandwiched perovskite solar cell

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. A, Materials for energy and sustainability Vol. 6; no. 4; pp. 1382 - 1389
• Main Authors: Ahn, Namyoung, Jeon, Il, Yoon, Jungjin, Kauppinen, Esko I., Matsuo, Yutaka, Maruyama, Shigeo, Choi, Mansoo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 2018
• Subjects: Carbon; Carbon nanotubes; Cost analysis; Cytology; Energy conversion efficiency; Fabrication; Illumination; Light; Low cost; Nanotechnology; Nanotubes; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Sandwich structures; Solar power
• ISSN: 2050-7488; 2050-7496
• DOI: 10.1039/C7TA09174E

Promising perovskite solar cell technology with soaring power conversion efficiencies has the common problems of low stability and high cost. This work provides a solution to these problems by employing a carbon sandwich structure, in which the fullerene bottom layer solves the stability issue and the carbon nanotube top electrode layer offers the merits of having high stability and being low-cost. Devices fabricated using different hole-transporting materials infiltrated into carbon nanotube networks were examined for their performance and stability under constant illumination in air. Polymeric hole-transporting layers show much higher stability when combined with carbon nanotubes due to their compact nature and stronger interaction with the carbon network. As a result, the encapsulated device showed high stability both in air and under light illumination, maintaining up to 80% of the initial efficiency after 2200 hours under actual operation conditions. Cost analysis also shows that using the polymeric hole-transporting materials in carbon nanotube films brings the fabrication cost down to less than 5.5% that of conventional devices. Our study proposes a promising cell structure toward highly stable and low-cost perovskite photovoltaic technologies for the future.