Enhancing the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells based on moisture-resistant dopant free hole transport materials by using a 2D-BA2PbI4 interfacial layer

Farzaneh S Ghoreishi; Vahid Ahmadi; Maryam Alidaei; Farzaneh Arabpour Roghabadi; Mahmoud Samadpour; Reza Poursalehi; Erik M J Johansson

doi:10.1039/d1cp04863e

Enhancing the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells based on moisture-resistant dopant free hole transport materials by using a 2D-BA₂PbI₄ interfacial layer

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2022 Jan 19;24(3):1675-1684. doi: 10.1039/d1cp04863e.

Authors

Farzaneh S Ghoreishi^{1

2}, Vahid Ahmadi^{1

3}, Maryam Alidaei³, Farzaneh Arabpour Roghabadi^{3

4}, Mahmoud Samadpour⁵, Reza Poursalehi¹, Erik M J Johansson²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nanotechnology Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-111, Iran. v_ahmadi@modares.ac.ir.
² Department of Chemistry - Ångström-Laboratory, Institution of Physical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, 75120-523, Sweden.
³ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-194, Iran.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-114, Iran.
⁵ Department of Physics, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, 15418-49611, Iran.

PMID: 34982079
DOI: 10.1039/d1cp04863e

Abstract

In this work, the photovoltaic performance and stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) based on a dopant-free hole transport layer (HTL) are efficiently improved by inserting a two-dimensional (2D) interfacial layer. The benzyl ammonium lead iodide (BA₂PbI₄) 2D perovskite is used as an interfacial layer between the 3D CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite and two moisture-resistant dopant-free HTLs including poly[[2,3-bis(3-octyloxyphenyl)-5,8-quinoxalinediyl]-2,5-thiophenediyl] (TQ1) and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT). TQ1 with a facile synthesis procedure has a higher moisture resistivity compared to P3HT which can improve the stability of PSCs. The 2D BA₂PbI₄ perovskite with a less-volatile bulkier organic cation efficiently passivates the defects at the perovskite/HTL interface, leading to 11.95% and 15.04% efficiency for the modified TQ1 and P3HT based cells, respectively. For a better understanding, the structural, optical, and electrical properties of PSCs comprising P3HT and TQ1 HTLs with and without interface modification are studied. The interface modified PSCs show slower open-circuit voltage decay and longer carrier lifetimes compared to unmodified cells. In addition, impedance spectroscopy reveals lower charge transport resistance and higher recombination resistance for the modified devices, which could be associated with the modification of the interface between the 3D CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite and HTL caused by the 2D interfacial layer. Also after aging under ambient conditions for about 800 hours, the modified PCSs retain more than 80% of their initial PCEs. These results give us the hope of achieving simpler, cheaper, and more stable PSCs with dopant-free HTLs through 2D interfacial layers, which have great potential for commercialization.