Zinc oxide (ZnO) has interesting optoelectronic properties, but suffers from chemical instability when in contact with perovskite interfaces; hence, the perovskite deposited on the top degrades promptly. Surface passivation strategies alleviate this instability issue; however, synthesis to passivate ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) in situ has received less attention. Here, a new synthesis at low temperatures with an ethanolamine post treatment has been developed. By using ZnO NPs prepared with ethanolamine and butanol (BuOH), (E-ZnO), the stability of the FA0.9Cs0.1PbI3 (FACsPI)−ZnO interface was achieved, with a photoconversion efficiency of >18%. Impedance spectroscopy demonstrates that the recombination at the interface was reduced in the system with E-ZnO/perovskite compared to common SnO2/perovskite and that the quality of the perovskite on the top is clearly due to the ZnO in situ passivation with ethanolamine. This work extends the use of E-ZnO as an n-type charge extraction layer and demonstrates its feasibility with methylammonium perovskite. Moreover, this study paves the way for other in situ passivation methods with different target molecules, along with new insights regarding the perovskite interface rearrangement when in contact with the modified electron transport layer (ETL).
Keywords: ZnO nanoparticles; charge recombination; efficiency; electron transport layer; interface; organic ligands; perovskite; solar cells; stability; surface passivation.