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Inorganic perovskites with cesium (Cs+) as the cation have great potential as photovoltaic materials if their phase purity and stability can be addressed. Herein, a series of inorganic perovskites is studied, and it is found that the power conversion efficiency of solar cells with compositions CsPbI1.8Br1.2, CsPbI2.0Br1.0, and CsPbI2.2Br0.8 exhibits a high dependence on the initial annealing step that is found to significantly affect the crystallization and texture behavior of the final perovskite film. At its optimized annealing temperature, CsPbI1.8Br1.2 exhibits a pure orthorhombic phase and only one crystal orientation of the (110) plane. Consequently, this allows for the best efficiency of up to 14.6% and the longest operational lifetime, T-S80, of approximate to 300 h, averaged of over six solar cells, during the maximum power point tracking measurement under continuous light illumination and nitrogen atmosphere. This work provides essential progress on the enhancement of photovoltaic performance and stability of CsPbI3 - xBrx perovskite solar cells.
The remarkable progress of metal halide perovskites in photovoltaics has led to the power conversion efficiency approaching 26%. However, practical applications of perovskite-based solar cells are challenged by the stability issues, of which the most critical one is photo-induced degradation. Bare CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite films are known to decompose rapidly, with methylammonium and iodine as volatile species and residual solid PbI2 and metallic Pb, under vacuum under white light illumination, on the timescale of minutes. We find, in agreement with previous work, that the degradation is non-uniform and proceeds predominantly from the surface, and that illumination under N-2 and ambient air (relative humidity 20%) does not induce substantial degradation even after several hours. Yet, in all cases the release of iodine from the perovskite surface is directly identified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This goes in hand with a loss of organic cations and the formation of metallic Pb. When CH3NH3PbI3 films are covered with a few nm thick organic capping layer, either charge selective or non-selective, the rapid photodecomposition process under ultrahigh vacuum is reduced by more than one order of magnitude, and becomes similar in timescale to that under N-2 or air. We conclude that the light-induced decomposition reaction of CH3NH3PbI3, leading to volatile methylammonium and iodine, is largely reversible as long as these products are restrained from leaving the surface. This is readily achieved by ambient atmospheric pressure, as well as a thin organic capping layer even under ultrahigh vacuum. In addition to explaining the impact of gas pressure on the stability of this perovskite, our results indicate that covalently "locking" the position of perovskite components at the surface or an interface should enhance the overall photostability.