Strain Regulation of Mixed-Halide Perovskites Enables High-Performance Wide-Bandgap Photovoltaics

Adv Mater. 2024 Feb 20:e2401103. doi: 10.1002/adma.202401103. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Wide-bandgap mixed-halogen perovskite materials are widely used as top cells in tandem solar cells. However, serious open-circuit voltage (Voc ) loss restricts the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, it is shown that the resulting methylammonium vacancies induce lattice distortion in methylammonium chloride-assisted perovskite film, resulting in an inhomogeneous halogen distribution and low Voc . Thus, a lattice strain regulation strategy is reported to fabricate high-performance wide-bandgap PSCs. Rubidium (Rb) cations are introduced to fill the A-site vacancy caused by the methylammonium volatilization, which alleviates shrinkage strain of the perovskite crystal. The reduced lattice distortion and increased halide ion migration barrier result in a homogeneous mixed-halide perovskite film. Due to improved carrier transport and suppressed nonradiative recombination, the Rb-treated wide-bandgap PSC (1.68 eV) achieves an excellent PCE of 21.72%, accompanied by a high Voc of 1.22 V. The resulting device maintains more than 90% of its initial PCE after 1500 h under 1-sun illumination conditions.

Keywords: homogeneous halogen distribution; lattice strain; mixed-halogen perovskite; open-circuit voltage loss; wide-bandgap photovoltaics.