Room Temperature Processed Double Electron Transport Layers for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 11; no. 2; p. 329
• Main Authors: Huang, Wen, Zhang, Rui, Xia, Xuwen, Steichen, Parker, Liu, Nanjing, Yang, Jianping, Chu, Liang, Li, Xing'ao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 27.01.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Annealing; Decomposition; Deposition; double electron transport layer; Efficiency; Electromagnetic absorption; Electron mobility; Electron transport; energy band matching; Energy bands; Energy conversion efficiency; Glass substrates; interface; Magnetron sputtering; Niobium oxides; perovskite; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Room temperature; Scanning electron microscopy; Solar cells; Spectrum analysis; Thin films; Zinc oxide; China; electron transport; double electron transport layer; perovskite; interface; energy band matching
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano11020329

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) has been regarded as a promising electron transport layer (ETL) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) owing to its high electron mobility. However, the acid-nonresistance of ZnO could destroy organic-inorganic hybrid halide perovskite such as methylammonium lead triiodide (MAPbI ) in PSCs, resulting in poor power conversion efficiency (PCE). It is demonstrated in this work that Nb O /ZnO films were deposited at room temperature with RF magnetron sputtering and were successfully used as double electron transport layers (DETL) in PSCs due to the energy band matching between Nb O and MAPbI as well as ZnO. In addition, the insertion of Nb O between ZnO and MAPbI facilitated the stability of the perovskite film. A systematic investigation of the ZnO deposition time on the PCE has been carried out. A deposition time of five minutes achieved a ZnO layer in the PSCs with the highest power conversion efficiency of up to 13.8%. This excellent photovoltaic property was caused by the excellent light absorption property of the high-quality perovskite film and a fast electron extraction at the perovskite/DETL interface.