Room Temperature Sputtering of NiOx Hole Transport Layer for Single and Tandem Perovskite Based Solar Cells and Modules

Sownder Subramaniam^a^,^b^,^c^,^d, Yinghuan Kuang^a^,^b^,^c, Robert Gehlhaar^a, Tom Aernouts^a^,^b^,^c, Jef Poortmans^a^,^b^,^c^,^d, Jan Genoe^a^,^b^,^d

^aImec, imo-imomec, Thin Film PV Technology – partner in Solliance, Thor Park 8320, 3600 Genk, Belgium

^bEnergyVille, imo-imomec, Thor Park 8320, 3600 Genk, Belgium

^cHasselt University, imo-imomec, Martelarenlaan 42, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium

^dKU Leuven, Dept. of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), Leuven, Belgium

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV23)

London, United Kingdom, 2023 June 12th - 14th

Organizers: Tracey Clarke, James Durrant and Trystan Watson

Poster, Sownder Subramaniam, 078
Publication date: 30th March 2023

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are at the heart of photovoltaic research. The transport layers which sandwich the perovskite absorber in these devices play a crucial role in device performance and stability. Typical hole transport layers (HTLs) used in inverted PSCs and corresponding tandem devices are PTAA, Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) and NiOx among others. Of these HTLs, NiOx¹ offers suitable material characteristics, excellent stability and is easy to scale up, e.g., by sputter deposition. However, sputtered NiOx typically requires a high temperature (~300°C) post-annealing step to tuning its optoelectronic properties². Such a high-temperature annealing step limits the application of NiOx as HTL in tandem and flexible devices because of their low thermal budget.

In this work, we have developed a NiOx HTL through radio frequency sputtering of the NiO target without using extra substrate heating during the deposition (referred to as RT-NiOx). RT-NiOx works equivalently well without post-annealing or annealing at a reduced temperature of ~150°C. With the newly developed HTL, we can achieve similar optical and electrical properties of the NiOx layer annealed at 300°C. So far, with RT-NiOx we have achieved a power conversion efficiency of 20.9% on single junction PSCs against 21.5% on similar devices with 300°C annealed NiOx. We will present the implementation of RT-NiOx contact layers in the perovskite modules and in tandem solar cells with CIGS or Silicon bottom cells.

References:

[1] Xueping, L. et al. Fast and balanced charge transport enabled by solution-processed metal oxide layers for efficient and stable inverted perovskite solar cells. Energy & Environmental Materials e12595 (2023) doi:10.1002/EEM2.12595

[2] Aydin, E. et al. Room-Temperature-Sputtered Nanocrystalline Nickel Oxide as Hole Transport Layer for p-i-n Perovskite Solar Cells. ACS Appl Energy Mater 1, 6227–6233 (2018)

nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.

MATSUS

Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics

The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.

International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics

The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.