Suppressed phase segregation for triple-junction perovskite solar cells

Zaiwei Wang; Lewei Zeng; Tong Zhu; Hao Chen; Bin Chen; Dominik J Kubicki; Adam Balvanz; Chongwen Li; Aidan Maxwell; Esma Ugur; Roberto Dos Reis; Matthew Cheng; Guang Yang; Biwas Subedi; Deying Luo; Juntao Hu; Junke Wang; Sam Teale; Suhas Mahesh; Sasa Wang; Shuangyan Hu; Eui Dae Jung; Mingyang Wei; So Min Park; Luke Grater; Erkan Aydin; Zhaoning Song; Nikolas J Podraza; Zheng-Hong Lu; Jinsong Huang; Vinayak P Dravid; Stefaan De Wolf; Yanfa Yan; Michael Grätzel; Merx G Kanatzidis; Edward H Sargent

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06006-7

Suppressed phase segregation for triple-junction perovskite solar cells

Nature. 2023 Jun;618(7963):74-79. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06006-7. Epub 2023 Mar 28.

Authors

Zaiwei Wang^#¹, Lewei Zeng^#¹, Tong Zhu^#¹, Hao Chen^#¹, Bin Chen^{1

2}, Dominik J Kubicki³, Adam Balvanz², Chongwen Li^{1

4}, Aidan Maxwell¹, Esma Ugur⁵, Roberto Dos Reis⁶, Matthew Cheng⁶, Guang Yang⁷, Biwas Subedi⁴, Deying Luo⁸, Juntao Hu⁹, Junke Wang¹, Sam Teale¹, Suhas Mahesh¹, Sasa Wang¹, Shuangyan Hu¹, Eui Dae Jung¹, Mingyang Wei^{1

10}, So Min Park¹, Luke Grater¹, Erkan Aydin⁵, Zhaoning Song⁴, Nikolas J Podraza⁴, Zheng-Hong Lu^{8

9}, Jinsong Huang⁷, Vinayak P Dravid⁶, Stefaan De Wolf⁵, Yanfa Yan⁴, Michael Grätzel¹⁰, Merx G Kanatzidis², Edward H Sargent^{11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
² Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy and Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA.
⁵ KAUST Solar Center (KSC), Physical Sciences and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
⁷ Department of Applied Physical Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁹ Department of Physics, Center for Optoelectronics Engineering Research, Yunnan University, Kunming, China.
¹⁰ Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces, Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fedérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
¹¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ted.sargent@utoronto.ca.
¹² Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. ted.sargent@utoronto.ca.
¹³ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. ted.sargent@utoronto.ca.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36977463
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06006-7

Abstract

The tunable bandgaps and facile fabrication of perovskites make them attractive for multi-junction photovoltaics^1,2. However, light-induced phase segregation limits their efficiency and stability^3-5: this occurs in wide-bandgap (>1.65 electron volts) iodide/bromide mixed perovskite absorbers, and becomes even more acute in the top cells of triple-junction solar photovoltaics that require a fully 2.0-electron-volt bandgap absorber^2,6. Here we report that lattice distortion in iodide/bromide mixed perovskites is correlated with the suppression of phase segregation, generating an increased ion-migration energy barrier arising from the decreased average interatomic distance between the A-site cation and iodide. Using an approximately 2.0-electron-volt rubidium/caesium mixed-cation inorganic perovskite with large lattice distortion in the top subcell, we fabricated all-perovskite triple-junction solar cells and achieved an efficiency of 24.3 per cent (23.3 per cent certified quasi-steady-state efficiency) with an open-circuit voltage of 3.21 volts. This is, to our knowledge, the first reported certified efficiency for perovskite-based triple-junction solar cells. The triple-junction devices retain 80 per cent of their initial efficiency following 420 hours of operation at the maximum power point.