Influence of Perovskite Morphology on Slow and Fast Charge Transport and Hysteresis in the Perovskite Solar Cells

J Phys Chem Lett. 2016 Nov 17;7(22):4614-4621. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b01909. Epub 2016 Nov 3.

Abstract

We have investigated the influence of perovskite morphology on slow and fast charge transport in the perovskite solar cells. Solar cells with different perovskite cuboid sizes (50-300 nm) have been fabricated using various methylammonium iodide concentrations. Both the low-frequency capacitance and hysteresis are maximum for the cell with the largest perovskite grains (300 nm). The low-frequency capacitance is about three orders of magnitude greater than the intermediate frequency capacitance, indicating the great role of ions on the slow responses and hysteresis. The measurement of open-circuit voltage decay indicates that for the large grains of 300 nm up to 70% of Voc remains across the cell, even after passing ∼40 s. Such a long time Voc decay demonstrates the large accumulation of the ions at the perovskite interfaces with electron and hole transport layers, which conduct slow redistribution of the charges after the light is turned off.