TY - JOUR A1 - Kegelmann, Lukas A1 - Tockhorn, Philipp A1 - Wolff, Christian Michael A1 - Márquez, José A. A1 - Caicedo Dávila, Sebastián A1 - Korte, Lars A1 - Unold, Thomas A1 - Loevenich, Wilfried A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Rech, Bernd A1 - Albrecht, Steve T1 - Mixtures of Dopant-Free Spiro-OMeTAD and Water-Free PEDOT as a Passivating Hole Contact in Perovskite Solar Cells JF - ACS applied materials & interfaces N2 - Doped spiro-OMeTAD at present is the most commonly used hole transport material (HTM) in n-i-p-type perovskite solar cells, enabling high efficiencies around 22%. However, the required dopants were shown to induce nonradiative recombination of charge carriers and foster degradation of the solar cell. Here, in a novel approach, highly conductive and inexpensive water-free poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is used to replace these dopants. The resulting spiro-OMeTAD/PEDOT (SpiDOT) mixed films achieve higher lateral conductivities than layers of doped spiro-OMeTAD. Furthermore, combined transient and steady-state photoluminescence studies reveal a passivating effect of PEDOT, suppressing nonradiative recombination losses at the perovskite/HTM interface. This enables excellent quasi-Fermi level splitting values of up to 1.24 eV in perovskite/SpiDOT layer stacks and high open-circuit voltages (V-OC) up to 1.19 V in complete solar cells. Increasing the amount of dopant-free spiro-OMeTAD in SpiDOT layers is shown to enhance hole extraction and thereby improves the fill factor in solar cells. As a consequence, stabilized efficiencies up to 18.7% are realized, exceeding cells with doped spiro-OMeTAD as a HTM in this study. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, these results mark the lowest nonradiative recombination loss in the V-OC (140 mV with respect to the Shockley-Queisser limit) and highest efficiency reported so far for perovskite solar cells using PEDOT as a HTM. KW - perovskite solar cell KW - selective contact KW - spiro-OMeTAD KW - PEDOT KW - recombination KW - passivation KW - quasi-Fermi level splitting Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b01332 SN - 1944-8244 SN - 1944-8252 VL - 11 IS - 9 SP - 9172 EP - 9181 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caprioglio, Pietro A1 - Zu, Fengshuo A1 - Wolff, Christian Michael A1 - Prieto, Jose A. Marquez A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Becker, Pascal A1 - Koch, Norbert A1 - Unold, Thomas A1 - Rech, Bernd A1 - Albrecht, Steve A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - High open circuit voltages in pin-type perovskite solar cells through strontium addition JF - Sustainable Energy & Fuels N2 - The incorporation of even small amounts of strontium (Sr) into lead-base hybrid quadruple cation perovskite solar cells results in a systematic increase of the open circuit voltage (V-oc) in pin-type perovskite solar cells. We demonstrate via absolute and transient photoluminescence (PL) experiments how the incorporation of Sr significantly reduces the non-radiative recombination losses in the neat perovskite layer. We show that Sr segregates at the perovskite surface, where it induces important changes of morphology and energetics. Notably, the Sr-enriched surface exhibits a wider band gap and a more n-type character, accompanied with significantly stronger surface band bending. As a result, we observe a significant increase of the quasi-Fermi level splitting in the neat perovskite by reduced surface recombination and more importantly, a strong reduction of losses attributed to non-radiative recombination at the interface to the C-60 electron-transporting layer. The resulting solar cells exhibited a V-oc of 1.18 V, which could be further improved to nearly 1.23 V through addition of a thin polymer interlayer, reducing the non-radiative voltage loss to only 110 meV. Our work shows that simply adding a small amount of Sr to the precursor solutions induces a beneficial surface modification in the perovskite, without requiring any post treatment, resulting in high efficiency solar cells with power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 20.3%. Our results demonstrate very high V-oc values and efficiencies in Sr-containing quadruple cation perovskite pin-type solar cells and highlight the imperative importance of addressing and minimizing the recombination losses at the interface between perovskite and charge transporting layer. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c8se00509e SN - 2398-4902 VL - 3 IS - 2 SP - 550 EP - 563 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caprioglio, Pietro A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Wolff, Christian Michael A1 - Unold, Thomas A1 - Rech, Bernd A1 - Albrecht, Steve A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - On the relation between the open-circuit voltage and quasi-fermi level splitting in efficient perovskite solar cells JF - advanced energy materials N2 - Today's perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are limited mainly by their open‐circuit voltage (VOC) due to nonradiative recombination. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the relevant recombination pathways is needed. Here, intensity‐dependent measurements of the quasi‐Fermi level splitting (QFLS) and of the VOC on the very same devices, including pin‐type PSCs with efficiencies above 20%, are performed. It is found that the QFLS in the perovskite lies significantly below its radiative limit for all intensities but also that the VOC is generally lower than the QFLS, violating one main assumption of the Shockley‐Queisser theory. This has far‐reaching implications for the applicability of some well‐established techniques, which use the VOC as a measure of the carrier densities in the absorber. By performing drift‐diffusion simulations, the intensity dependence of the QFLS, the QFLS‐VOC offset and the ideality factor are consistently explained by trap‐assisted recombination and energetic misalignment at the interfaces. Additionally, it is found that the saturation of the VOC at high intensities is caused by insufficient contact selectivity while heating effects are of minor importance. It is concluded that the analysis of the VOC does not provide reliable conclusions of the recombination pathways and that the knowledge of the QFLS‐VOC relation is of great importance. KW - electro-optical materials KW - perovskite solar cells KW - photovoltaic devices KW - thin films Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201901631 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 9 IS - 33 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER -