Improving interface quality for 1-cm2 all-perovskite tandem solar cells

Rui He; Wanhai Wang; Zongjin Yi; Felix Lang; Cong Chen; Jincheng Luo; Jingwei Zhu; Jarla Thiesbrummel; Sahil Shah; Kun Wei; Yi Luo; Changlei Wang; Huagui Lai; Hao Huang; Jie Zhou; Bingsuo Zou; Xinxing Yin; Shengqiang Ren; Xia Hao; Lili Wu; Jingquan Zhang; Jinbao Zhang; Martin Stolterfoht; Fan Fu; Weihua Tang; Dewei Zhao

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-05992-y

Improving interface quality for 1-cm² all-perovskite tandem solar cells

Nature. 2023 Jun;618(7963):80-86. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05992-y. Epub 2023 Mar 29.

Authors

Rui He^#¹, Wanhai Wang^#^{2

3}, Zongjin Yi^#¹, Felix Lang^#⁴, Cong Chen⁵, Jincheng Luo¹, Jingwei Zhu¹, Jarla Thiesbrummel^{4

6}, Sahil Shah⁴, Kun Wei⁷, Yi Luo¹, Changlei Wang⁸, Huagui Lai⁹, Hao Huang¹⁰, Jie Zhou³, Bingsuo Zou¹⁰, Xinxing Yin¹¹, Shengqiang Ren¹, Xia Hao¹, Lili Wu¹, Jingquan Zhang¹, Jinbao Zhang⁷, Martin Stolterfoht⁴, Fan Fu¹², Weihua Tang^{13

14}, Dewei Zhao¹⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Engineering & Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology & Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
² Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE, Future Technologies), Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
⁴ Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
⁵ College of Materials Science and Engineering & Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology & Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. chen.cong@scu.edu.cn.
⁶ Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁷ College of Materials, Fujian Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Xiamen Key Laboratory of Electronic Ceramic Materials and Devices, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
⁸ School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Key Lab of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Key Lab of Modern Optical Technologies of Education Ministry of China, Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
⁹ Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
¹⁰ State Key Laboratory of Featured Metal Materials and Life-cycle Safety for Composite Structures, School of Resources, Environment and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
¹¹ China-Australia Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (IAMM), Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China.
¹² Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland. fan.fu@empa.ch.
¹³ Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE, Future Technologies), Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. whtang@xmu.edu.cn.
¹⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China. whtang@xmu.edu.cn.
¹⁵ College of Materials Science and Engineering & Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology & Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. dewei.zhao@scu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36990110
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05992-y

Abstract

All-perovskite tandem solar cells provide high power conversion efficiency at a low cost^1-4. Rapid efficiency improvement in small-area (<0.1 cm²) tandem solar cells has been primarily driven by advances in low-bandgap (approximately 1.25 eV) perovskite bottom subcells^5-7. However, unsolved issues remain for wide-bandgap (> 1.75 eV) perovskite top subcells⁸, which at present have large voltage and fill factor losses, particularly for large-area (>1 cm²) tandem solar cells. Here we develop a self-assembled monolayer of (4-(7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazol-7-yl)butyl)phosphonic acid as a hole-selective layer for wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells, which facilitates subsequent growth of high-quality wide-bandgap perovskite over a large area with suppressed interfacial non-radiative recombination, enabling efficient hole extraction. By integrating (4-(7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazol-7-yl)butyl)phosphonic acid in devices, we demonstrate a high open-circuit voltage (V_OC) of 1.31 V in a 1.77-eV perovskite solar cell, corresponding to a very low V_OC deficit of 0.46 V (with respect to the bandgap). With these wide-bandgap perovskite subcells, we report 27.0% (26.4% certified stabilized) monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells with an aperture area of 1.044 cm². The certified tandem cell shows an outstanding combination of a high V_OC of 2.12 V and a fill factor of 82.6%. Our demonstration of the large-area tandem solar cells with high certified efficiency is a key step towards scaling up all-perovskite tandem photovoltaic technology.