Additive Engineering of the CuSCN Hole Transport Layer for High-Performance Perovskite Semitransparent Solar Cells

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Nov 23;14(46):52223-52232. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c18120. Epub 2022 Nov 15.

Abstract

CuSCN has been widely considered a promising candidate for low-cost and high-stable hole transport material in perovskite semitransparent solar cells (STSCs). However, the low conductivity of the solution-processed CuSCN hole transport layer (HTL) hinders the hole extraction and transport in devices, which makes it hard to achieve devices with high performance. Herein, we report a facile additive engineering approach to optimize the p conductivity of CuSCN HTLs in perovskite STSCs. The n-butylammonium iodide additive facilitates the formation of Cu2+ and generates more Cu vacancies in the CuSCN HTL. This realizes a significant enhancement of the hole concentration and p conductivity of the film. Moreover, the additive improves the solubility of the CuSCN precursor solution and results in a uniform coverage on the perovskite active layer. Therefore, the perovskite STSC with a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.24% has been achieved, which is higher than that of the spiro-OMeTAD (18.83%) and CuSCN (17.45%) counterparts. In addition, the unencapsulated CuSCN-based device retains 87.5% of the initial PCE after 20 days in the ambient atmosphere.

Keywords: CuSCN; additive engineering; hole transport layer; perovskite; semitransparent solar cell.