Radiation Hardness of Perovskite/Silicon and Perovskite/CIGS Tandem Solar Cells under Proton Irradiation

Felix Lang^a, Marko Jošt^b, Kyle Frohna^a, Amran A. Ashouri^b, Alan R. Bowman^a, Tobias Bertram^b, Anna Belen Morales-Vilches^b, Elizabeth M. Tennyson^a, Krzysztof Galkowski^a, Bernd Stannowski^b, Christian A. Kaufmann^b, Rutger Schlatmann^b, Jürgen Bundesmann^b, Andrea Denker^b, Jörg Rappich^b, Steve Albrecht^b, Heinz-Christoph Neitzert^c, Norbert H. Nickel^b, Samuel D. Stranks^a

^aCavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, UK, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, United Kingdom

^bHelmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Germany, Berlin, Germany

^cDept. of Industrial Engineering (DIIn), Salerno University, Fisciano (SA), Italy

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting19 (NFM19)

#PERFuDe19. Halide perovskites: when theory meets experiment from fundamentals to devices

Berlin, Germany, 2019 November 3rd - 8th

Organizers: Claudine Katan, Wolfgang Tress and Simone Meloni

Oral, Felix Lang, presentation 150
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2019.150
Publication date: 18th July 2019

Single- and multi-junction solar cells based on hybrid perovskites are attractive for space applications due to their high efficiency-to-mass ratio. However, in space, outside of Earth’s magnetic field, solar arrays are exposed to high energetic proton and electron irradiation. Such high energetic radiation causes the formation of defects that accumulate and ultimately cause device failure. Recently, experiments have demonstrated the ability of methyl ammonium lead iodide perovskites to withstand the harsh radiation environment in space.^1–3 In order to increase the efficiency-to-mass ratio further, compositional engineering of perovskites utilizing a variety of cations and anions is required. Moreover, this approach allows to control the optical band gap⁴ which is necessary for efficient tandem solar cells comprising a perovskite top and silicon or Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) bottom absorbers.

In this work, we present a variety of in-situ measurements to demonstrate that [Cs_0.05(MA_0.17FA_0.83)_0.95] Pb(I_0.83Br_0.17)₃ based perovskite absorbers are radiation hard and possess negligible degradation under high-energy, high-dose proton irradiation.⁵ Optimized [Cs_0.05(MA_0.17FA_0.83)_0.95]Pb(I_0.83Br_0.17)₃ based single junction solar cells reach efficiencies of 19 % under simulated AM0 illumination and maintain 95 % of their initial efficiency even after irradiation with protons at an energy of 68 MeV and a total dose of 10¹² p/cm². Despite this negligible degradation, analyses suggest the formation of some radiation induced defect states causing a slower decay of the open circuit voltage and photoluminescence intensity after proton irradiation. This behavior suggests a complex interplay of the radiation induced defect formation, which will be discussed in this presentation.
On this basis, we developed monolithic perovskite/CIGS and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells with efficiencies of 20 % and 17 %, respectively. In-situ as well as ex-situ measurements demonstrate that perovskite/CIGS tandem solar cells maintain > 85 % of their initial efficiency after proton irradiation with an energy of 68 MeV and a dose of 2∙10¹² p/cm². In contrast, the perovskite/Si tandem solar cells degrade rapidly to 0.01 % of their initial efficiency under similar irradiation conditions. Using high spatial resolution photoluminescence microscopy, underlying reasons as well as strategies to improve the radiation hardness for both the high and low gap absorbers are identified.

References:

[1] Lang, F. et al. Radiation Hardness and Self-Healing of Perovskite Solar Cells. Adv. Mater. 28, 8726–8731 (2016).

[2] Miyazawa, Y. et al. Evaluation of radiation tolerance of perovskite solar cell for use in space. in 2015 IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) 1–4 (IEEE, 2015

[3] Miyazawa, Y. et al. Tolerance of Perovskite Solar Cell to High-Energy Particle Irradiations in Space Environment. iScience 2, 148–155 (2018).

[4] Unger, E. L. et al. Roadmap and roadblocks for the band gap tunability of metal halide perovskites. J. Mater. Chem. A 5, 11401–11409 (2017).

[5] Lang, F. et al. Efficient minority carrier detrapping mediating the radiation hardness of triple-cation perovskite solar cells under proton irradiation. Energy Environ. Sci. 12, 1634–1647 (2019).

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