Introduction of cadmium chloride additive to improve the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells

Mustafa K A Mohammed; Majid S Jabir; Haider G Abdulzahraa; Safa H Mohammed; Waleed Khaild Al-Azzawi; Duha S Ahmed; Sangeeta Singh; Anjan Kumar; S Asaithambi; Masoud Shekargoftar

doi:10.1039/d2ra03776a

Introduction of cadmium chloride additive to improve the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells

RSC Adv. 2022 Jul 15;12(32):20461-20470. doi: 10.1039/d2ra03776a. eCollection 2022 Jul 14.

Authors

Mustafa K A Mohammed^{1

2}, Majid S Jabir³, Haider G Abdulzahraa⁴, Safa H Mohammed⁵, Waleed Khaild Al-Azzawi⁶, Duha S Ahmed³, Sangeeta Singh⁷, Anjan Kumar^{7

8}, S Asaithambi⁹, Masoud Shekargoftar¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Radiology Techniques Department, Dijlah University College Al-Masafi Street Baghdad 00964 Iraq mustafa_kareem97@yahoo.com +964-7719047121.
² University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa Karbala Iraq.
³ Applied Science Department, University of Technology Iraq.
⁴ Department of Prosthodontic, Dijlah University College Al-Masafi Street Baghdad Iraq.
⁵ Radiological Techniques Department, Al-Mustaqbal University College Babylon Iraq.
⁶ Department of Medical Instruments Engineering Techniques, Al-Farahidi University Baghdad Iraq.
⁷ Microelectronics Lab, National Institute of Technology Patna 800005 India.
⁸ VLSI Research Lab, GLA University Mathura-281406 India.
⁹ Department of Physics, Alagappa University Karaikudi 630 003 Tamil Nadu India.
¹⁰ Laboratory for Biomaterials and Bioengineering (CRC-I), Department of Min-Met-Materials Engineering, Laval University Quebec City QC G1V0A6 Canada.

Abstract

With the increase in the importance of using green energy sources to meet the world's energy demands, attempts have been made to push perovskite solar cell technology toward industrialization all around the world. Improving the properties of perovskite materials as the heart of PSCs is one of the methods to fabricate favorable photovoltaic (PV) solar cells based on perovskites. Here, cadmium chloride (CdCl₂) was used as an additive source for the perovskite precursor to improve its PV properties. Results indicated CdCl₂ improves the perovskite growth and tailors its crystalline properties, suggesting boosted charge transport processes in the bulk and interfaces of the perovskite layer with electron-hole transport layers. Overall, by incorporation of 1.0% into the MAPbI₃ layer, a maximum power conversion efficiency of 15.28% was recorded for perovskite-based solar cells, higher than the 12.17% for the control devices. The developed method not only improved the PV performance of devices but also boosted the stability behavior of solar cells due to the passivated domain boundaries and enhanced hydrophobicity in the CdCl₂-based devices.