Towards Self-scrubbing Stable and Scalable Perovskite Solar Cells
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Dept of Chemistry
Abstract
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) show unprecedented levels of efficiency for such easy to process solar cells, and are higher than those of most common, but more expensive, silicon cells. They have an excellent potential to provide low-cost solar electricity. Spectacular impact is expected but is hindered by poor stability of the perovskite phase and concerns about the use of lead and especially its potential release into the environment. Lead is also a relatively highly regulated element. In this proposal, our team of leading chemists, materials scientists, device physicists and theorists, will address these issues through an integrated collaborative study. Building on our previous work we will improve the understanding of the key mechanisms responsible for PSC degradation, by exploring new perovskites, morphologies and stabilisation by the use of additives. The link between defects (structural imperfections) and PSC performance/stability will be investigated experimentally and using state-of-the-art modelling techniques. The approach will provide a sound basis for predictive guidelines for perovskite formulation to enable stable environmentally benign, inexpensive PV units for mass use. Among the most intriguing aspects of perovskite materials are the high efficiency of charge pair photo-generation and the long lifetime of these charges. We will use new ultrafast timescale spectroscopic techniques to obtain new insights concerning the dynamics of the perovskite photo-excited states. We will address issues of potential heavy metal contamination, in the event of PSC failure (and water ingress) by studying new lead-free perovskites as well as by developing new heavy metal self-scrubbing scaffolds within lead- and tin-containing PSCs. A new aerosol-assisted film deposition approach for fabrication of large area, high performance, stable and environmental safe PSCs will result. Our ambition is to provide prototype environmentally safe, demonstration, large area PSCs with enhanced operational stability that could be mass produced and have power conversion efficiencies exceeding 20%. A successful outcome to this project would provide improved fundamental understanding of the interplay between perovskite composition and device performance and new PSCs that would bring about the large-scale deployment of perovskite photovoltaics for CO2-free electricity generation closer.
Publications

Calado P
(2019)
Identifying Dominant Recombination Mechanisms in Perovskite Solar Cells by Measuring the Transient Ideality Factor
in Physical Review Applied

Du T
(2018)
Elucidating the Origins of Subgap Tail States and Open-Circuit Voltage in Methylammonium Lead Triiodide Perovskite Solar Cells
in Advanced Functional Materials

Hu Y
(2018)
Identifying and controlling phase purity in 2D hybrid perovskite thin films
in Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Lanzetta L
(2020)
Stability of Lead and Tin Halide Perovskites: The Link between Defects and Degradation.
in The journal of physical chemistry letters

Moia D
(2019)
Ionic-to-electronic current amplification in hybrid perovskite solar cells: ionically gated transistor-interface circuit model explains hysteresis and impedance of mixed conducting devices
in Energy & Environmental Science

Van Thor JJ
(2019)
Advances and opportunities in ultrafast X-ray crystallography and ultrafast structural optical crystallography of nuclear and electronic protein dynamics.
in Structural dynamics (Melville, N.Y.)

Van Thor JJ
(2019)
Coherent two-dimensional electronic and infrared crystallography.
in The Journal of chemical physics

Xiao B
(2020)
Relationship between Fill Factor and Light Intensity in Solar Cells Based on Organic Disordered Semiconductors: The Role of Tail States
in Physical Review Applied