A thermotropic liquid crystal enables efficient and stable perovskite solar modules

Journal Article · Thu Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2024 · Nature Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01444-z· OSTI ID:2502011

Yang, Yi ^[1]; Liu, Cheng ^[1]; Ding, Yong ^[2]; Ding, Bin ^[3]; Xu, Jian ^[4]; Liu, Ao ^[1]; Yu, Jiaqi ^[1]; Grater, Luke ^[4]; Zhu, Huihui ^[1]; Hadke, Shreyash Sudhakar ^[1]; Sangwan, Vinod K. ^[1]; Bati, Abdulaziz R. ^[1]; Hu, Xiaobing ^[1]; Li, Jiantao ^[5]; Park, So Min ^[1]; Hersam, Mark C. ^[1]; Chen, Bin ^[1]; Nazeeruddin, Mohammad Khaja ^[3]; Kanatzidis, Mercouri G. ^[1]; Sargent, Edward H. ^[6]

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1. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
2. Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland). Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering; North China Electric Power University, Beijing (China)
3. Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland). Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
4. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada)
5. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
6. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada); Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)

Perovskite solar cells have seen impressive progress in performance and stability, yet maintaining efficiency while scaling area remains a challenge. Here we find that additives commonly used to passivate large-area perovskite films often co-precipitate during perovskite crystallization and aggregate at interfaces, contributing to defects and to spatial inhomogeneity. Here we develop design criteria for additives to prevent their evaporative precipitation and enable uniform passivation of defects. We explored liquid crystals with melting point below the perovskite processing temperature, functionalization for defect passivation and hydrophobicity to improve device stability. We find that thermotropic liquid crystals such as 3,4,5-trifluoro-4'-(trans-4-propylcyclohexyl)biphenyl enable large-area perovskite films that are uniform, low in defects and stable against environmental stress factors. We demonstrate modules with a certified stabilized efficiency of 21.1% at an aperture area of 31 cm² and enhanced stability under damp-heat conditions (ISOS-D-3, 85% relative humidity, 85 °C) with T₈₆ (the duration for the efficiency to decay to 86% of the initial value) of 1,200 h, and reverse bias with (ISOS-V-1, negative maximum-power-point voltage) and without bypass diodes.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 2502011
• Journal Information: Nature Energy, Journal Name: Nature Energy Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 9; ISSN 2058-7546
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY