Perovskite solar cells based on nanocolumnar plasma-deposited ZnO thin films

F Javier Ramos; Maria C López-Santos; Elena Guillén; Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin; Michael Grätzel; Agustin R Gonzalez-Elipe; Shahzada Ahmad

doi:10.1002/cphc.201301215

Perovskite solar cells based on nanocolumnar plasma-deposited ZnO thin films

Chemphyschem. 2014 Apr 14;15(6):1148-53. doi: 10.1002/cphc.201301215. Epub 2014 Mar 18.

Authors

F Javier Ramos¹, Maria C López-Santos, Elena Guillén, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Michael Grätzel, Agustin R Gonzalez-Elipe, Shahzada Ahmad

Affiliation

¹ Abengoa Research, C/Energía Solar no 1, Campus Palmas Altas-41014, Sevilla (Spain); Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Station 6, CH-1015 Lausanne (Switzerland).

PMID: 24643984
DOI: 10.1002/cphc.201301215

Abstract

ZnO thin films having a nanocolumnar microstructure are grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at 423 K on pre-treated fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates. The films consist of c-axis-oriented wurtzite ZnO nanocolumns with well-defined microstructure and crystallinity. By sensitizing CH3NH3PbI3 on these photoanodes a power conversion of 4.8% is obtained for solid-state solar cells. Poly(triarylamine) is found to be less effective when used as the hole-transport material, compared to 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD), while the higher annealing temperature of the perovskite leads to a better infiltration in the nanocolumnar structure and an enhancement of the cell efficiency.

Keywords: ZnO; perovskite; photovoltaics; plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition; solid-state solar cells.