Aromatic Alkylammonium Spacer Cations for Efficient Two-Dimensional Perovskite Solar Cells with Enhanced Moisture and Thermal Stability

Deepak Thrithamarassery Gangadharan, Yujie Han, Ashish Dubey, Xinyu Gao, Baoquan Sun, Qiquan Qiao, Ricardo Izquierdo, Dongling Ma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) perovskite solar cells are prone to degradation in the presence of moisture, heat, and light. Recently, two-dimensional (2D) perovskites are synthesized by isolating metal halide perovskite layers using aliphatic or aromatic alkylammonium spacer cation, which can retain their performance under ambient humidity levels due to the hydrophobic property of the spacer cation. However, the best 2D perovskite thus far, using aliphatic short butylammonium (BA) cation as spacer cation, shows only a modest tolerance against moisture and heat due to the inferior hydrophobicity as well as the relatively smaller size of the BA cation. Here, a bulkier aromatic phenylethylammonium (PEA) used as a spacer cation to synthesis 2D perovksite in order to achieve highly stable solar cells. By modifying the crystallization process, an average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.50% is achieved, which is the highest reported PCE for aromatic alkylammonium-based lower dimensional perovskite solar cells. Importantly, unencapsulated (PEA)2(MA)3Pb4I13 devices show enhanced moisture stability compared to other reported perovskite solar cells in harsh moisture environment (72 ± 2% relative humidity). Moreover, the use of organic materials in p-i-n type device, instead of metal oxides, as electron and hole extraction layers also paves the way toward constructing flexible perovskite solar cells.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1700215
JournalSolar RRL
Volume2
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • 2D perovskite solar cells
  • layered perovskites
  • moisture stability
  • photostability
  • thermal stability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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