As the third generation of new thin-film solar cells, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted much attention for their excellent photovoltaic performance. Today, PSCs have reported the highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.5%, which is an encouraging value, very close to the highest PCE of the most widely used silicon-based solar cells. However, scholars have found that PSCs have problems of being easily decomposed under ultraviolet (UV) light, poor stability, energy level mismatch and severe hysteresis, which greatly limit their industrialization. As unique materials, quantum dots (QDs) have many excellent properties and have been widely used in PSCs to address the issues mentioned above. In this article, we describe the application of various QDs as additives in different layers of PSCs, as luminescent down-shifting materials, and directly as electron transport layers (ETL), light-absorbing layers and hole transport layers (HTL). The addition of QDs optimizes the energy level arrangement within the device, expands the range of light utilization, passivates defects on the surface of the perovskite film and promotes electron and hole transport, resulting in significant improvements in both PCE and stability. We summarize in detail the role of QDs in PSCs, analyze the perspective and associated issues of QDs in PSCs, and finally offer our insights into the future direction of development.
Keywords: energy level alignment; passivation effect; perovskite solar cells; quantum dots; stability.