Concentration-Dependence of Glycine Hydrochloride on the Performance, Recombination Losses, and Carrier Lifetime of Pb-Sn Perovskite Solar Cells

Lana Kessels^a, Willemijn Remmerswaal^a, Lara van der Poll^b, Laura Bellini^a, Nicolas Daub^a, Martijn Wienk^a, Tom Savenije^b, Rene Janssen^a

^aMolecular Materials and Nanosystems, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, Eindhoven Station, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, Países Bajos, Eindhoven, Netherlands

^bDepartment of Chemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Netherlands, Netherlands

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)

#MHPN3 - Fundamental Advances in Metal Halide Perovskites and Beyond: new materials, new mechanisms, and new challenges

Torremolinos, Spain, 2023 October 16th - 20th

Organizers: Paola Vivo, Qiong Wang and Kaifeng Wu

Poster, Lana Kessels, 320
Publication date: 18th July 2023

Incorporating tin into mixed-halide lead perovskites has gained considerable attention as it allows for a narrower bandgap (between 1.2 and 1.5 eV), making it suitable for all-perovskite-based tandem solar cells. However, with the incorporation of tin comes the challenge of higher oxidation levels and different crystallization rates. To evade such problems, the processing method is often altered, or various additives are added to the precursor solution or applied as a passivation layer. One of the main classes of additives used for perovskites, and now also becoming popular for tin-containing perovskites, is amino acids as they have a dual functionality enhancing the crystallinity and charge transport of the perovskite. [1]–[6] In particular, glycine hydrochloride (GlyHCl) has been shown to act as a nucleation center that leads to larger grains and the induced dipole at the bottom interface helps the hole extraction. [4], [5] However, research so far has often focused on the combination of the glycine with either a top passivator (EDAI₂) [4] or another bulk passivator (CuSCN) [3]. In this work, we investigate the influence of the concentration of the glycine on the performance, recombination losses and carrier lifetime of a Cs_0.1FA_0.6MA_0.3Pb_0.5Sn_0.5I₃ perovskite. By testing 1, 2, and 4 mol% of GlyHCl in the bulk, we observed that using 1-2 mol% not only improved the V_OC from 0.77 to 0.80 V but also the stability under operating conditions increased drastically. Absolute photoluminescence measurements also showed that the 1-2 mol% glycine concentrations yielded high quasi-Fermi level splitting (QFLS) values of approximately 900 mV, obtaining 91.2% of the radiative limit for the 1.24 eV perovskite. Additionally, time-resolved microwave conductivity measurements revealed that 1 mol% of GlyHCl substantially enhanced the carrier lifetime of the perovskite film, indicating less undesired recombination processes and explaining the V_OCincrease. Interfacial loss analysis and light intensity-dependent measurements showed that the glycine enhances the quality of the bulk, thereby reducing the non-radiative recombination losses and having more of a band-to-band-like mechanism. Instead, 4 mol% of GlyHCl damages the perovskite as the QFLS dropped drastically, possibly due to an excess of nucleation centra within the film causing an ununiform film. Pseudo J-V curves show the potential of the devices and hint at the electron transport layer – perovskite interface for being the bottleneck in the current device configuration.

References:

[1] H. Yuan et al., “Steric effect of amino-acids as additives for perovskite solar cells,” J. Alloys Compd., vol. 876, p. 160140, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2021.160140.

[2] C. T. Lin et al., “Correlating the Active Layer Structure and Composition with the Device Performance and Lifetime of Amino-Acid-Modified Perovskite Solar Cells,” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, vol. 13, pp. 43505–43515, 2021, doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c08279.

[3] H. Kim et al., “Highly Efficient Hole Transport Layer-Free Low Bandgap Mixed Pb–Sn Perovskite Solar Cells Enabled by a Binary Additive System,” Adv. Funct. Mater., vol. 32, no. 12, p. 2110069, Mar. 2022, doi: 10.1002/adfm.202110069.

[4] S. Hu et al., “Optimized carrier extraction at interfaces for 23.6% efficient tin-lead perovskite solar cells,” Energy Environ. Sci., vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 2096–2107, May 2022, doi: 10.1039/d2ee00288d.

[5] H. Zheng et al., “Self-Additive Low-Dimensional Ruddlesden–Popper Perovskite by the Incorporation of Glycine Hydrochloride for High-Performance and Stable Solar Cells,” Adv. Funct. Mater., vol. 30, no. 15, p. 2000034, Apr. 2020, doi: 10.1002/adfm.202000034.

[6] C. T. Lin et al., “Evidence for surface defect passivation as the origin of the remarkable photostability of unencapsulated perovskite solar cells employing aminovaleric acid as a processing additive,” J. Mater. Chem. A, vol. 7, no. 7, pp. 3006–3011, 2019, doi: 10.1039/C8TA11985F.

Acknowledgements:

This project was funded by the NWO Spinoza grant and HyET Solar.

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