Interfacial Engineering of Au@Nb2CTx-MXene Modulates the Growth Strain, Suppresses the Auger Recombination, and Enables an Open-Circuit Voltage of over 1.2 V in Perovskite Solar Cells

Shuainan Liu; Donglei Zhou; Xinmeng Zhuang; Rui Sun; Hugang Zhang; Jin Liang; Yanrun Jia; Dali Liu; Hongwei Song

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c18362

Interfacial Engineering of Au@Nb₂CT_x-MXene Modulates the Growth Strain, Suppresses the Auger Recombination, and Enables an Open-Circuit Voltage of over 1.2 V in Perovskite Solar Cells

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Jan 25;15(3):3961-3973. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c18362. Epub 2023 Jan 13.

Authors

Shuainan Liu¹, Donglei Zhou¹, Xinmeng Zhuang¹, Rui Sun¹, Hugang Zhang², Jin Liang¹, Yanrun Jia¹, Dali Liu¹, Hongwei Song¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun130012, People's Republic of China.
² Key Laboratory for Molecular Enzymology and Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun130012, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 36637003
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c18362

Abstract

Defects at the interface of charge transport layers can cause severe charge accumulation and poor charge transferability, which greatly affect the efficiency and stability of stannic oxide (SnO₂)-based perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, a new type of MXene (Nb₂CT_x-MXene) is applied to the interface of SnO₂ layers to passivate the interfacial defects and promote charge transport. Nb₂CT_x-MXene in PSCs realizes the role of boosting the conductivity, reducing the tin vacancies in the interstitial void of the SnO₂ layer, decreasing the defect density, and aligning the bandgap. Afterward, Nb₂CT_x-MXene is decorated with gold nanospheres, which has the ability to modulate the tensile strain of perovskites and suppress the Auger recombination. Eventually, the Au@Nb₂CT_x-MXene-modified device yields an excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 23.78% with a relatively high open-circuit voltage of 1.215 V (E_g ∼ 1.60 eV). The unencapsulated devices maintain 90% of their initial PCE values after storage in the air with a relative humidity of 40% for 1000 h and remain above 80% of their initial efficiency after operation at the maximum power point for 500 h under 1 sun illumination. Our work provides an avenue to fabricate high-efficiency and stable PSCs with MXene adapting to commercial development.

Keywords: MXene; gold nanosphere; high open-circuit voltage; interfacial engineering; perovskite solar cells; tensile strain.