Stability Improvement of Perovskite Solar Cells by the Moisture-Resistant PMMA:Spiro-OMeTAD Hole Transport Layer

Polymers (Basel). 2022 Jan 17;14(2):343. doi: 10.3390/polym14020343.

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) based on the 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD) hole transport layer have exhibited leading device performance. However, the instability caused by this organic function layer is a very important limiting factor to the further development of PSCs. In this work, the spiro-OMeTAD is doped with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), which is further used as the hole transport layer to improve the device stability. It is shown that the PMMA can effectively improve the moisture and oxygen resistance of spiro-OMeTAD, which leads to improved device stability by separating the perovskite layer from moisture and oxygen. The device efficiency can maintain 77% of the original value for PSCs with the PMMA-doped spiro-OMeTAD hole transport layer, under a natural air environment (RH = 40%) for more than 80 days. The results show that the moisture- and oxygen-resistant PMMA:spiro-OMeTAD hole transport layer is effective at improving the device performance.

Keywords: PMMA; hole transport layer; perovskite solar cells; spiro-OMeTAD; stability.