Perovskite Heterostructures by Vapour Deposition
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
There is currently a pressing global need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, and at the same time satisfy the world's growing desire for cheap electricity. Solar cells, which directly convert the Sun's radiation into electricity, offer a realistic method of generating electricity sustainably, on a large scale and at costs similar to and even lower than more polluting conventional forms of power generation (coal, gas, nuclear). Over the past few years a new class of solar cells based on metal-halide perovskite semiconductors has emerged. Power conversion efficiencies for these materials have increased at an unprecedented rate for a new photovoltaics material and now exceed 20%. An intense worldwide research effort into these materials is now underway; however nearly all research is focussed on solution processed perovskites, and most highly efficient solar cells are small area devices not suited to large area deployment. In this project we will build on our early lead in the area of vapour deposited perovskites to develop highly efficient large area perovskite solar cells. Our evaporation technique offers superior film uniformity over large areas and is highly reproducible as compared with more common solution processing methods. Using the vapour deposition route we will develop all-perovskite tandem and multi-junction solar cells to further improve the efficiency for these remarkable devices. We utilise the recently funded EPSRC "National thin-film cluster facility for advanced functional materials" to adapt our advances in perovskite materials and device technologies to current industrial thin-film production methods.
Planned Impact
This project will advance methods for the vapour deposition of perovskite semiconductors, and realise efficient, cost-effective, large area, all-perovskite multilayer photovoltaic (PV) devices. It is our vision and motivation that over a 10 to 20 year time scale, the cost of electricity from PV will drop to less than a quarter the cost of producing electricity from coal. This has the potential to, and in our view will, deliver a zero-carbon future within a 30 year timeframe.
There is overwhelming evidence that our increasing consumption of fossil fuels and the associated emission of carbon dioxide is leading to climate change. This has brought new urgency to the development of clean, renewable sources of energy, and to reduction of our energy consumption by developing new low energy consumption devices to satisfy the growing demand. Photovoltaic devices that harvest the energy provided by the sun have great potential to contribute to the solution, but uptake of photovoltaic energy generation has been weakened by the cost of devices based on current technology. Although silicon PV continues to steadily drop in price, the key to creating a step reducing cost is the development of new photovoltaic materials either offering a step increase in efficiency or allowing easy, large-scale processing from solution or low-temperature evaporation, neither of which require costly purification and high-energy, slow deposition processes. Very high efficiency solar cells have been realised in group-III-V materials using tandem and multi-junction architectures, but at present the production costs of these devices are high, making them uneconomic for large-area deployment. The route we are undertaking here is to exploit recent advances made in solution-processed metal halide perovskite materials by transferring them to the industrially relevant technique of vapour deposition. The vapour deposition technique will not only allow the cost-effective production of highly uniform large area solar cells with high yield, but will also enable a step improvement in device efficiency by creating tandem and multi-junction solar cells.
The global PV market is currently close to $100bn pa. Although 90% of the market is presently met by c-Si and only 10% by thin-film, low cost thin-film approaches still look set to offer the lowest prices on a 10 to 50 year timescale, allowing solar energy to compete favourably on price with fossil fuels. Establishing all-perovskite tandem solar cells will boost the efficiency, while the vapour deposition method will enable large devices and close to 100% device yields, together delivering a premium product for the entire PV market. This could then access the majority of a $100bn market, and then further accelerate the growth of the PV market as a whole.
The vapour-deposition technology developed in the project will create uniform, large area solar cells with high efficiencies and device yields. This technology is compatible with infrastructure used in industry for large-area thin-film deposition, and thus the outcomes of the project could be immediately transferred to the UK manufacturing industry. This has the potential to put UK at the forefront of the expanding "green energy" economy both in terms of solar cell manufacturing and the growing business of large area terrestrial solar power generation. Beyond commercial, economic, environmental and societal impact, the activities within this project will aid in the training and education of both scientists and the general public. The training of PDRAs and PhD students in this industrially relevant area will create an employment pool for jobs in research, R&D, energy sectors and other economic areas, and carry the knowledge and skills they acquire into those fields. The project's outreach activities will engage and inform the public and inspire young minds to become our future generation technologists and leaders.
There is overwhelming evidence that our increasing consumption of fossil fuels and the associated emission of carbon dioxide is leading to climate change. This has brought new urgency to the development of clean, renewable sources of energy, and to reduction of our energy consumption by developing new low energy consumption devices to satisfy the growing demand. Photovoltaic devices that harvest the energy provided by the sun have great potential to contribute to the solution, but uptake of photovoltaic energy generation has been weakened by the cost of devices based on current technology. Although silicon PV continues to steadily drop in price, the key to creating a step reducing cost is the development of new photovoltaic materials either offering a step increase in efficiency or allowing easy, large-scale processing from solution or low-temperature evaporation, neither of which require costly purification and high-energy, slow deposition processes. Very high efficiency solar cells have been realised in group-III-V materials using tandem and multi-junction architectures, but at present the production costs of these devices are high, making them uneconomic for large-area deployment. The route we are undertaking here is to exploit recent advances made in solution-processed metal halide perovskite materials by transferring them to the industrially relevant technique of vapour deposition. The vapour deposition technique will not only allow the cost-effective production of highly uniform large area solar cells with high yield, but will also enable a step improvement in device efficiency by creating tandem and multi-junction solar cells.
The global PV market is currently close to $100bn pa. Although 90% of the market is presently met by c-Si and only 10% by thin-film, low cost thin-film approaches still look set to offer the lowest prices on a 10 to 50 year timescale, allowing solar energy to compete favourably on price with fossil fuels. Establishing all-perovskite tandem solar cells will boost the efficiency, while the vapour deposition method will enable large devices and close to 100% device yields, together delivering a premium product for the entire PV market. This could then access the majority of a $100bn market, and then further accelerate the growth of the PV market as a whole.
The vapour-deposition technology developed in the project will create uniform, large area solar cells with high efficiencies and device yields. This technology is compatible with infrastructure used in industry for large-area thin-film deposition, and thus the outcomes of the project could be immediately transferred to the UK manufacturing industry. This has the potential to put UK at the forefront of the expanding "green energy" economy both in terms of solar cell manufacturing and the growing business of large area terrestrial solar power generation. Beyond commercial, economic, environmental and societal impact, the activities within this project will aid in the training and education of both scientists and the general public. The training of PDRAs and PhD students in this industrially relevant area will create an employment pool for jobs in research, R&D, energy sectors and other economic areas, and carry the knowledge and skills they acquire into those fields. The project's outreach activities will engage and inform the public and inspire young minds to become our future generation technologists and leaders.
Publications
Patel J
(2016)
Influence of Interface Morphology on Hysteresis in Vapor-Deposited Perovskite Solar Cells
in Advanced Electronic Materials
Borchert J
(2017)
Large-Area, Highly Uniform Evaporated Formamidinium Lead Triiodide Thin Films for Solar Cells
in ACS Energy Letters
Wright A
(2017)
Band-Tail Recombination in Hybrid Lead Iodide Perovskite
in Advanced Functional Materials
Crothers TW
(2017)
Photon Reabsorption Masks Intrinsic Bimolecular Charge-Carrier Recombination in CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite.
in Nano letters
McMeekin DP
(2017)
Crystallization Kinetics and Morphology Control of Formamidinium-Cesium Mixed-Cation Lead Mixed-Halide Perovskite via Tunability of the Colloidal Precursor Solution.
in Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
Noel N
(2017)
A low viscosity, low boiling point, clean solvent system for the rapid crystallisation of highly specular perovskite films
in Energy & Environmental Science
Rehman W
(2017)
Photovoltaic mixed-cation lead mixed-halide perovskites: links between crystallinity, photo-stability and electronic properties
in Energy & Environmental Science
Lin Q
(2017)
Near-Infrared and Short-Wavelength Infrared Photodiodes Based on Dye-Perovskite Composites
in Advanced Functional Materials
Davies C
(2018)
Temperature-Dependent Refractive Index of Quartz at Terahertz Frequencies
in Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves
Davies CL
(2018)
Bimolecular recombination in methylammonium lead triiodide perovskite is an inverse absorption process.
in Nature communications
Milot R
(2018)
The Effects of Doping Density and Temperature on the Optoelectronic Properties of Formamidinium Tin Triiodide Thin Films
in Advanced Materials
Knight A
(2018)
Electronic Traps and Phase Segregation in Lead Mixed-Halide Perovskite
in ACS Energy Letters
Parrott E
(2018)
Interplay of Structural and Optoelectronic Properties in Formamidinium Mixed Tin-Lead Triiodide Perovskites
in Advanced Functional Materials
Davies C
(2018)
Impact of the Organic Cation on the Optoelectronic Properties of Formamidinium Lead Triiodide
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Pérez-Osorio M
(2018)
Raman Spectrum of the Organic-Inorganic Halide Perovskite CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 from First Principles and High-Resolution Low-Temperature Raman Measurements
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Wang Z
(2018)
High irradiance performance of metal halide perovskites for concentrator photovoltaics
in Nature Energy
Patel JB
(2018)
Photocurrent Spectroscopy of Perovskite Solar Cells Over a Wide Temperature Range from 15 to 350 K.
in The journal of physical chemistry letters
Noel N
(2018)
Highly Crystalline Methylammonium Lead Tribromide Perovskite Films for Efficient Photovoltaic Devices
in ACS Energy Letters
Lin Q
(2018)
Hybrid Perovskites: Prospects for Concentrator Solar Cells.
in Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)
Pulvirenti F
(2018)
Modification of the fluorinated tin oxide/electron-transporting material interface by a strong reductant and its effect on perovskite solar cell efficiency
in Molecular Systems Design & Engineering
Motti SG
(2019)
Heterogeneous Photon Recycling and Charge Diffusion Enhance Charge Transport in Quasi-2D Lead-Halide Perovskite Films.
in Nano letters
Lim J
(2019)
Elucidating the long-range charge carrier mobility in metal halide perovskite thin films
in Energy & Environmental Science
McMeekin D
(2019)
Solution-Processed All-Perovskite Multi-junction Solar Cells
in Joule
Lin Y
(2019)
Deciphering photocarrier dynamics for tuneable high-performance perovskite-organic semiconductor heterojunction phototransistors
in Nature Communications
Borchert J
(2019)
Impurity Tracking Enables Enhanced Control and Reproducibility of Hybrid Perovskite Vapor Deposition.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Patel JB
(2019)
Effect of Ultraviolet Radiation on Organic Photovoltaic Materials and Devices.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Ball J
(2019)
Dual-Source Coevaporation of Low-Bandgap FA 1- x Cs x Sn 1- y Pb y I 3 Perovskites for Photovoltaics
in ACS Energy Letters
Parrott ES
(2019)
Growth modes and quantum confinement in ultrathin vapour-deposited MAPbI3 films.
in Nanoscale
Noel N
(2019)
Elucidating the Role of a Tetrafluoroborate-Based Ionic Liquid at the n-Type Oxide/Perovskite Interface
in Advanced Energy Materials
Duijnstee E
(2020)
Toward Understanding Space-Charge Limited Current Measurements on Metal Halide Perovskites
in ACS Energy Letters
Ulatowski A
(2020)
Terahertz Conductivity Analysis for Highly Doped Thin-Film Semiconductors
in Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves
Patel J
(2020)
Light Absorption and Recycling in Hybrid Metal Halide Perovskite Photovoltaic Devices
in Advanced Energy Materials
Klug M
(2020)
Metal composition influences optoelectronic quality in mixed-metal lead-tin triiodide perovskite solar absorbers
in Energy & Environmental Science
Oliver R
(2020)
Thermally Stable Passivation toward High Efficiency Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells
in ACS Energy Letters
Wright AD
(2020)
Intrinsic quantum confinement in formamidinium lead triiodide perovskite.
in Nature materials
Eggimann HJ
(2020)
Efficient energy transfer mitigates parasitic light absorption in molecular charge-extraction layers for perovskite solar cells.
in Nature communications
Rothmann MU
(2020)
Atomic-scale microstructure of metal halide perovskite.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Ulatowski AM
(2020)
Charge-Carrier Trapping Dynamics in Bismuth-Doped Thin Films of MAPbBr3 Perovskite.
in The journal of physical chemistry letters
Lohmann KB
(2020)
Control over Crystal Size in Vapor Deposited Metal-Halide Perovskite Films.
in ACS energy letters
Peng K
(2020)
Three-dimensional cross-nanowire networks recover full terahertz state.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Mahesh S
(2020)
Revealing the origin of voltage loss in mixed-halide perovskite solar cells
in Energy & Environmental Science
Lin YH
(2020)
A piperidinium salt stabilizes efficient metal-halide perovskite solar cells.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Le Corre VM
(2021)
Revealing Charge Carrier Mobility and Defect Densities in Metal Halide Perovskites via Space-Charge-Limited Current Measurements.
in ACS energy letters
Xia C
(2021)
Ultrafast photo-induced phonon hardening due to Pauli blocking in MAPbI 3 single-crystal and polycrystalline perovskites
in Journal of Physics: Materials
Knight AJ
(2021)
Halide Segregation in Mixed-Halide Perovskites: Influence of A-Site Cations.
in ACS energy letters
Duijnstee E
(2021)
Understanding Dark Current-Voltage Characteristics in Metal-Halide Perovskite Single Crystals
in Physical Review Applied
Xia CQ
(2021)
Limits to Electrical Mobility in Lead-Halide Perovskite Semiconductors.
in The journal of physical chemistry letters
| Description | There is currently a pressing global need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, and at the same time satisfy the world's growing desire for cheap electricity. Solar cells, which directly convert the Sun's radiation into electricity, offer a realistic method of generating electricity sustainably, on a large scale and at costs similar to and even lower than more polluting conventional forms of power generation (coal, gas, nuclear). Over the past few years a new class of solar cells based on metal-halide perovskite semiconductors has emerged. Power conversion efficiencies for these materials have increased at an unprecedented rate for a new photovoltaics material and now exceed 20%. An intense worldwide research effort into these materials is now underway; however nearly all research is focussed on solution processed perovskites. We have developed a "dry" (solvent free) method of depositing hight efficiency thin-film solar cells. Our vapour-deposition technique offers superior film uniformity over large areas and is highly reproducible. The high quality thin films of metal halide perovskites developed during this project have also enabled a serious of studies of the fundamental science of these remarkable semiconductors. |
| Exploitation Route | Our results offer an industrially-scalable approach to the manufacture of high-efficiency thin-film solar cells. Our work has also lead to other research groups and companies worldwide using our approach. |
| Sectors | Electronics,Energy,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| URL | https://www-thz.physics.ox.ac.uk/perovskites.html |