Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Enhance the Efficiency and Stability of Mesoscopic Perovskite Solar Cells

Munkhbayar Batmunkh; Cameron J Shearer; Munkhjargal Bat-Erdene; Mark J Biggs; Joseph G Shapter

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b04894

Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Enhance the Efficiency and Stability of Mesoscopic Perovskite Solar Cells

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Jun 14;9(23):19945-19954. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b04894. Epub 2017 Jun 2.

Authors

Munkhbayar Batmunkh^{1

2}, Cameron J Shearer¹, Munkhjargal Bat-Erdene¹, Mark J Biggs^{2

3}, Joseph G Shapter¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Flinders University , Bedford Park, Adelaide, South Australia 5042, Australia.
² School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
³ School of Science, Loughborough University , Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, U.K.

PMID: 28537374
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b04894

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes are 1D nanocarbons with excellent properties and have been extensively used in various electronic and optoelectronic device applications including solar cells. Herein, we report a significant enhancement in the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) by employing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in the mesoporous photoelectrode. It was found that SWCNTs provide both rapid electron transfer and advantageously shifts the conduction band minimum of the TiO₂ photoelectrode and thus enhances all photovoltaic parameters of PSCs. The TiO₂-SWCNTs photoelectrode based PSC device exhibited a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 16.11%, while the device fabricated without SWCNTs displayed an efficiency of 13.53%. More importantly, we found that the SWCNTs in the TiO₂ nanoparticles (TiO₂ NPs) based photoelectrode suppress the hysteresis behavior and significantly enhance both the light and long-term storage stability of the PSC devices. The present work provides important guidance for future investigations in utilizing carbonaceous materials for solar cells.

Keywords: TiO2 photoelectrode; carbon nanotubes; device performance; device stability; perovskite solar cells.