Issue 11, 2022

Elimination of light-induced degradation at the nickel oxide-perovskite heterojunction by aprotic sulfonium layers towards long-term operationally stable inverted perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Nickel oxide (NiOx) is a promising hole-selective contact to produce efficient inverted p-i-n structured perovskite solar cells (PSCs) due to its high carrier mobility and high transparency. However, the light-induced degradation of the NiOx–perovskite heterojunction is the main factor limiting its long-term operational lifetime. In this study, we used the time-resolved mass spectrometry technique to clarify the degradation mechanism of the NiOx-formamidinium–methylammonium iodide perovskite (a common composition for high-performance PSCs) heterojunction under operational conditions, and observed that (1) oxidation of iodide and generation of free protons under 1-sun illumination, (2) formation of volatile hydrogen cyanide, methyliodide, and ammonia at elevated temperatures, and (3) a condensation reaction between the organic components under a high vapor pressure. To eliminate these multi-step photochemical reactions, we constructed an aprotic trimethylsulfonium bromide (TMSBr) buffer layer at the NiOx/perovskite interface, which enables excellent photo-thermal stability, a matched lattice parameter with the perovskite crystal, and robust trap-passivation ability. Inverted PSCs stabilized with the TMSBr buffer layer reached the maximum efficiency of 22.1% and retained 82.8% of the initial value after continuous operation for 2000 hours under AM1.5G light illumination, which translates into a T80 lifetime of 2310 hours that is among the highest operational lifetimes for NiOx-based PSCs.

Graphical abstract: Elimination of light-induced degradation at the nickel oxide-perovskite heterojunction by aprotic sulfonium layers towards long-term operationally stable inverted perovskite solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Jun 2022
Accepted
22 Aug 2022
First published
23 Sep 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Environ. Sci., 2022,15, 4612-4624

Elimination of light-induced degradation at the nickel oxide-perovskite heterojunction by aprotic sulfonium layers towards long-term operationally stable inverted perovskite solar cells

T. Wu, L. K. Ono, R. Yoshioka, C. Ding, C. Zhang, S. Mariotti, J. Zhang, K. Mitrofanov, X. Liu, H. Segawa, R. Kabe, L. Han and Y. Qi, Energy Environ. Sci., 2022, 15, 4612 DOI: 10.1039/D2EE01801B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements