Interfacial Engineering of Metal Oxides for Highly Stable Halide Perovskite Solar Cells

Oxides employed in halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have already demonstrated to deliver enhanced stability, low cost, and the ease of fabrication required for the commercialization of the technology. The most stable PSCs configuration, the carbon-based hole transport layer-free PSC (HTL-free PSC), has demonstrated a stability of more than one year of continuous operation partially due to the dual presence of insulating oxide scaffolds and conductive oxides. Despite these advances, the stability of PSCs is still a concern and a strong limiting factor for their industrial implementation. The engineering of oxide interfaces functionalized with molecules (like self-assembly monolayers) or polymers results in the passivation of defects (traps), providing numerous advantages such as the elimination of hysteresis and the enhancement of solar cell efficiency. But most important is the beneficial effect of interfacial engineering on the lifetime and stability of PSCs. In this work, the authors provide a brief insight into the recent developments reported on the surface functionalization of oxide interfaces in PSCs with emphasis on the effect of device stability. This paper also discusses the different binding modes, their effect on defect passivation, band alignment or dipole formation, and how these parameters influence device lifetime.

Nanoparticle sensitisation of solid-state nanocrystalline solar cell

Robert Plass

Over the past fifteen years dye-sensitised nanocrystalline solar cells have been the subject of intense research and development efforts. These systems provide a technically and economically credible alternative to classical p-n junction solar cells, reaching over 10 % certified efficiency under standard solar illumination conditions (AM 1.5, 1000 W/m2). Recently, the liquid electrolyte, commonly used in these dye-sensitised solar cells, could successfully be replaced by a novel solid hole-conducting material (spiro-OMeTAD). The absence of volatile solvents and corrosive components like iodine presents a clear advantage of these solid-state devices over their photoelectrochemical counterparts. Yet, their maximum overall efficiency of about 3 % clearly lacks behind the performance features of classical dye-sensitized solar cells. The objective of this work is the replacement of the usually used sensitiser (transition metal complexes and organic dyes) by quantum-dots. It was motivated by the possibility to achieve panchromatic light absorption due to the size-dependent properties of the quantum-dots. Some studies have been published using quantum-dots of inorganic low-bandgap semiconductors as sensitisers for mesoporous wide bandgap semiconductor electrodes in conjunction with liquid electrolytes. These systems often suffer from corrosion and photo-corrosion mainly due to the aggressive nature of the electrolyte employed. Solid-state organic-inorganic heterojunctions might provide the desired environment for quantum-dot sensitisation, as the environment is much less aggressive. A large variety of inorganic quantum-dot materials like PbS, CdS, PbSe and CdSe were scrutinized for their use as sensitisers. All particles were synthesised in situ on the TiO2 surface using two different techniques: dip-coating and chemical bath deposition. Lead sulphide was the most investigated due to its superior photovoltaic characteristics. High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) of PbS sensitised TiO2 electrodes fabricated via dip-coating clearly showed the distinct particles on the surface of the semiconductor. The electron transfer dynamics following optical excitation of quantum-dot sensitized TiO2/spiro-OMeTAD heterojunctions were thoroughly studied. Fluorescence spectroscopy was used to prove the possible electron injection from the PbS into the TiO2. Nanosecond laser spectroscopy was applied to monitor the interfacial recombination of the injected electron and the oxidised hole-conductor. Femtosecond laser spectroscopy allowed measuring the ultra-fast kinetics in the system, including electron trapping, exciton recombination and PbS regeneration. An overall efficiency of 0.5 % at 0.1 sun (AM 1.5) has been reached with such systems. Chemical bath deposition (CBD) of PbS leads to the formation of a layer rather than distinct particles on the TiO2. Solar cells fabricated via CBD exhibited open-circuit voltages which were generally 100 mV higher then those of comparable devices made via dip-coating. The PbS layer acts as blocking layer, hindering the contact between TiO2 and the hole-conductor. This technique allowed achieving devices highly linear with respect to the illumination power. Different strategies were pursued to impede interfacial recombination, among which the introduction of self-assembled monolayers at the interface between the organic and inorganic phases was proven to be the most efficient. Nanosecond laser spectroscopy showed a strong decrease of the interfacial recombination kinetic rates in the presence of hexadecylmalonic acid or decylphosphonic acid monolayers. Short-circuit currents could be raised by a factor two to four using such type of molecules. The overall efficiency of the device could be strongly increased, reaching 1 % at 0.1 Sun (AM 1.5). CBD was also used to deposit PbSe and CdSe layers at the surface of TiO2. Fluorescence spectroscopy was used to probe electron injection from CdSe quantum dots to TiO2. Generally it was observed that metal sulfides were more efficient in sensitizing TiO2/OMeTAD heterojunctions then the respective selenides.

EPFL2004

Electronic and structural modification of titanium dioxide/zinc oxide photoanode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Aravind Kumar Chandiran

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) are a new class of molecular photovoltaics that mimics the natural photosynthesis, for the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity. A typical DSC is a sandwich of a dye sensitized nanoparticle TiO2 film and a catalyst coated counter electrode, with a redox electrolyte filling the space in between. The high internal surface area of the mesoporous TiO2 film ensures higher dye uptake for an efficient light harvesting. Following the light illumination, an electron from the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) of the dye is excited to its lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO). Due to an effective electronic orbital coupling between dye and TiO2, the excited electrons are injected into TiO2. The oxidized dye is regenerated by the electron donor present in the electrolyte. The circuit is completed by the transfer of photogenerated electrons in TiO2 via an external load, to counter electrode regenerating the oxidized electrolyte species. In a conventional DSC, the transport rate of the photogenerated electrons in TiO2 competes with the parasitic electron recombination, as these two processes occur at a similar ms time domain. This thesis work is aimed at the fundamental understanding of these electron transfer processes at sensitized photoanodes that were subject to different bulk and surface electronic structural modifications. The implications were shown to be of profound interest for the fabrication of high efficiency and low cost dye-sensitized solar cells. In the first part of the thesis, the bulk electronic structure of the anatase TiO2 nanoparticles is modified by the incorporation of different concentrations of aliovalent cations (Nb5+, Ga3+, Y3+) in the crystal lattice. The cationic doping/substitution in the nanoparticles is achieved by hydrothermal process. The modified nanoparticles retained the parent anatase crystal structure of TiO2. The transparent dye-sensitized solar cells made with these modified films, using our standard heteroleptic metal complex sensitizers and iodide/triiodide redox electrolyte, displayed enhanced photovoltaic performances, at certain added concentrations. Charge extraction measurements in DSC, reveals a formation of deeper trap states below the conduction band of titanium dioxide when Nb ion is incorporated into the TiO2 lattice. On the other hand, Ga3+ and Y3+ did not significantly affect the trap states distribution compared to the reference device. The modification in the trap states and the oxygen stoichiometry due to these cation inclusions significantly influenced the electron recombination and transport rates. These properties are investigated in detail using transient decay techniques. Following the study on the electronic structure of the bulk TiO2, the influence of the surface modification of the TiO2 nanoparticles on the electron transfer dynamics is investigated. The kinetics of electron recombination from TiO2 to the single electron redox shuttles is fast, leading to a significant loss in the open-circuit potential (VOC) of devices. The emergence of cobalt complexes as a potential electrolyte motivated us to investigate the role of surface passivation of the titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Insulating sub-nanometer oxide tunneling layers deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) are known to block the electron recombination, thereby, leading to an increase in the VOC and the collection efficiency of the solar cell. A general perception in the DSC community is that any insulating oxide layer can block the recombination. However, in this work, it is unraveled that, just the insulating property of oxides is not sufficient. In addition, the properties such as the conduction band position and the oxidation state of the insulating oxide, the electronic structural modification induced to the underlying TiO2 mesoporous film, modification of surface charges (isoelectric point) and charge of the electrolyte species have to be considered. A complete photovoltaic study has been done by depositing different cycles (by ALD) of four insulating oxides (Ga2O3, ZrO2, Nb2O5 and Ta2O5) and their recombination characteristics, surface electronic properties, transport rate and injection dynamics are investigated with a standard organic dye and Co2+/Co3+ redox mediator. A comparison is made with the conventional iodide/triiodide electrolyte. The second part of the thesis is focused at the development of new type of photoanodes for effective electron transport to increase the charge collection efficiency. We present a way of utilizing thin and conformal overlayer of titanium dioxide or zinc oxide on an insulating mesoporous template as a photoanode for dye-sensitized solar cells. Different thicknesses of TiO2 ranging from 1 to 15 nm are deposited on the surface of the template by ALD. This systematic study helps unraveling the minimum critical thickness of the TiO2 overlayer required to transport the photogenerated electrons efficiently. A merely 6 nm thick TiO2 film on a 3 μm mesoporous insulating substrate is shown to transport 8 mA/cm2 of photocurrent density along with ≈900 mV of open-circuit potential, when using our standard donor-π-acceptor sensitizer and Co(bipyridine)3 redox mediator. The three dimensional conformal shell on the insulating core also exhibits one order of magnitude higher transport rate compared to the conventional TiO2 nanoparticles. Similar nanostructures were made by depositing ZnO on an insulating template and the electron transfer properties are compared with titania. We also developed ALD recipe for the deposition of crystalline TiO2 or ZnO at low temperatures (< 200 °C) on arbitrary mesoporous insulating templates, considering their prospects of making photoanodes on flexible plastic substrates. The experience gained about the deposition of conformal and pin-hole free TiO2 layer in the previous section is extended for the high efficiency solid-state mesoscopic solar cells based on CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite absorbers. We show that a 2 nm as-deposited ALD overlayer on a mesoporous TiO2 film, printed on a bare conducting glass, is sufficient to arrest the recombination process that lead to a power conversion efficiency of 11.5 %. A detailed investigation on the electron back reaction is presented using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

EPFL2013

Light Generation and Harvesting in a van der Waals Heterostructure

Esther Alarcon Llado, Andras Kis, Volodymyr Koman, Oriol López Sánchez, Aleksandra Radenovic

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are a new type of materials under intense study because of their interesting physical properties and wide range of potential applications from nanoelectronics to sensing and photonics. Monolayers of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides MoS2 or WSe2 have been proposed as promising channel materials for field-effect transistors. Their high mechanical flexibility, stability, and quality coupled with potentially inexpensive production methods offer potential advantages compared to organic and crystalline bulk semiconductors. Due to quantum mechanical confinement, the band gap in monolayer MoS2 is direct in nature, leading to a strong interaction with light that can be exploited for building phototransistors and ultrasensitive photodetectors. Here, we report on the realization of light-emitting diodes based on vertical heterojunctions composed of n-type monolayer MoS2 and p-type silicon. Careful interface engineering allows us to realize diodes showing rectification and light emission from the entire surface of the heterojunction. Electroluminescence spectra show clear signs of direct excitons related to the optical transitions between the conduction and valence bands. Our p-n diodes can also operate as solar cells, with typical external quantum efficiency exceeding 4%. Our work opens up the way to more sophisticated optoelectronic devices such as lasers and heterostructure solar cells based on hybrids of 2D semiconductors and silicon.