Resolving spatial and energetic distributions of trap states in metal halide perovskite solar cells

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 367; no. 6484; pp. 1352 - 1358
• Main Authors: Ni, Zhenyi, Bao, Chunxiong, Liu, Ye, Jiang, Qi, Wu, Wu-Qiang, Chen, Shangshang, Dai, Xuezeng, Chen, Bo, Hartweg, Barry, Yu, Zhengshan, Holman, Zachary, Huang, Jinsong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 20.03.2020; AAAS
• Subjects: Bulk density; Capacitance; Charge density; Crystal defects; Crystal surfaces; Crystals; Current carriers; Interfaces; Mapping; Metal halides; Nanocrystals; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Polycrystals; Recombination; Single crystals; Solar cells; SOLAR ENERGY; Transport; Traps
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aba0893

The high efficiency of hybrid inorganic-organic perovskite solar cells is mainly limited by defects that trap the charge carriers and lead to unproductive recombination. Ni et al. used drive-level capacitance profiling to map the spatial and energetic distribution of trap states in both polycrystalline and single-crystal perovskite solar cells. The interface trap densities were up to five orders of magnitude higher than the bulk trap densities. Deep traps were mainly located at the interface of perovskites and hole-transport layers, where processing created a high density of nanocrystals. These results should aid efforts aimed at avoiding trap-state formation or passivating such defects. Science , this issue p. 1352 The distributions of trap states in metal halide perovskite solar cells were measured with drive-level capacitance profiling. We report the profiling of spatial and energetic distributions of trap states in metal halide perovskite single-crystalline and polycrystalline solar cells. The trap densities in single crystals varied by five orders of magnitude, with a lowest value of 2 × 10 11 per cubic centimeter and most of the deep traps located at crystal surfaces. The charge trap densities of all depths of the interfaces of the polycrystalline films were one to two orders of magnitude greater than that of the film interior, and the trap density at the film interior was still two to three orders of magnitude greater than that in high-quality single crystals. Suprisingly, after surface passivation, most deep traps were detected near the interface of perovskites and hole transport layers, where a large density of nanocrystals were embedded, limiting the efficiency of solar cells.