Solvent-controlled growth of inorganic perovskite films in dry environment for efficient and stable solar cells

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 2225 - 7
• Main Authors: Wang, Pengyang, Zhang, Xingwang, Zhou, Yuqin, Jiang, Qi, Ye, Qiufeng, Chu, Zema, Li, Xingxing, Yang, Xiaolei, Yin, Zhigang, You, Jingbi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.06.2018; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/146; 639/301/299/946; 639/4077/4072/4062; Cesium; Efficiency; Energy conversion efficiency; Humanities and Social Sciences; Iodides; multidisciplinary; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Solar cells; Solvents; Stability; Thermal stability
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04636-4

Inorganic halide perovskites such as cesium lead halide are promising due to their excellent thermal stability. Cesium lead iodide (CsPbI 3 ) has a bandgap of 1.73 eV and is very suitable for making efficient tandem solar cells, either with low-bandgap perovskite or silicon. However, the phase instability of CsPbI 3  is hindering the further optimization of device performance. Here, we show that high quality and stable α-phase CsPbI 3 film is obtained via solvent-controlled growth of the precursor film in a dry environment. A 15.7% power conversion efficiency of CsPbI 3 solar cells is achieved, which is the highest efficiency reported for inorganic perovskite solar cells up to now. And more importantly, the devices can tolerate continuous light soaking for more than 500 h without efficiency drop. Cesium lead iodide inorganic perovskite solar cells have great potential but the phase instability hinders their development. Here Wang et al. show a controlled drying process to make phase stable and highly efficient solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 15.7%.